Bringing
to you this week another piece of southern fiction I read while I was on
vacation a couple weeks ago. Beach and southern fiction just go together like
peanut butter and jelly, in my honest opinion. Before my trip I hadn’t read a
book by Sarah Addison Allen before, but I ended up reading not one but two of
her books while I was at the beach. Her books seem to have the elements of
magic, a little mystery, love, and she manages to make her characters
relatable.
In The Peach Keeper Willa
Jackson is from a Southern family who came face to face with financial ruin a
few generations back. The financial ruin the family faced forced them to leave
the The Blue Ridge Madam, the house Willa’s great-great-grandfather built. The
Blue Ridge Madam, once one of the nicest homes in Walls of Water, NC, has sat
vacant for many years. Willa comes to learn that a classmate she went to high
school with, Paxton Osgood, has taken on the task to restore The Madam to it’s
former glory with plans to turn it into a hotel.
During
the restoration of the old house a skeleton is found buried under a peach tree
that sits on the property. Once Paxton’s grandmother is informed the bones have
been found long-kept secrets start to come out of the woodwork. Willa and
Paxton become bound to each other in an effort to uncover the mysteries,
betrayals, and stories of long ago that tied their families together.
In ThePeach Keeper Sarah Addison Allen does a wonderful job of bridging a gap,
bringing a story that transcends time. This is definitely a book worth read –
perfect for a quick weekend read on a lazy day.
