With all the grim news of late, I’ve been very conscious of making time for self-care, including one of my favorite modes of relaxation, reading. This week’s #spellbooksaturday feature wasn’t an all-time favorite, but the escapism provided was certainly appreciated.
Spells for Forgetting by Adrienne Young
★ ★ ★ ☆ ☆
[Content Warning: Child Abuse]
Emery Blackwood’s life changed forever the night her best friend was found dead and the love of her life, August Salt, was accused of murdering her. Years later, she is doing what her teenage self swore she never would: living a quiet existence on the misty, remote shores of Saoirse Island and running the family’s business, Blackwood’s Tea Shoppe Herbal Tonics & Tea Leaf Readings. But when the island, rooted in folklore and magic, begins to show signs of strange happenings, Emery knows that something is coming. The morning she wakes to find that every single tree on Saoirse has turned color in a single night, August returns for the first time in fourteen years and unearths the past that the town has tried desperately to forget.
August knows he is not welcome on Saoirse, not after the night everything changed. As a fire raged on at the Salt family orchard, Lily Morgan was found dead in the dark woods, shaking the bedrock of their tight-knit community and branding August a murderer. When he returns to bury his mother’s ashes, he must confront the people who turned their backs on him and face the one wound from his past that has never healed—Emery. But the town has more than one reason to want August gone, and the emergence of deep betrayals and hidden promises spanning generations threaten to reveal the truth behind Lily’s mysterious death once and for all.
(source: goodreads.com)
There were elements of this book I really enjoyed— the setting of the island was richly imagined, and I was especially charmed by the tea shop— but I found Young’s writing to be a bit heavy handed. It seemed that nearly every chapter ended with an ominous hint, giving a sort of melodramatic “but they didn’t know the dark secret that I knew” tone that quickly wore thin for me. Also, I have personally never been a fan of rekindled teenage romance stories— I found it trite and emotionally shallow. Overall, though, I did appreciate the way in which magic was handled in the novel, and I’d recommend it to anyone looking for a cozy mystery.
Have you read Spells for Forgetting? What were your thoughts? Share in the comments!
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