Spells for Forgetting: A Novel

Adrienne Young

Sep 2022 · Sold by Dell

About this ebook

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • “Lush with secrets, magic, and a past that won’t stay where it belongs, this novel is (quite fittingly) spellbinding.”—JODI PICOULT, author of Wish You Were Here

A deeply atmospheric story about ancestral magic, an unsolved murder, and a second chance at true love

ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: She Reads

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 Saiorse, 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.

Ratings and reviews

I had a love/dread relationship with this book. Some passages captivated me so much that I could not put the book down while some others were a stiff climb to keep reading. Excellently achieves to transport you to Saoirse and to feel this veil of magic. My biggest challenge was to care for these characters, I achieved it at last, but I was already at 60% of the book. Maybe a multi Pow would have been better than focusing so much in August and Emery at the beginning. My fav characters were Hannah, Eloise, Emery' grandma and Dad, and I would have loved to know more about them. Also, I missed a bit more depth in the magic and the reasons for it on the island. I also think we missed an opportunity to get a bit more the POW from the island itself. All in all, 3,5 stars for me.

With a touch of magic and a balance of human evil rolled into a engaging “whodunnit”. This well written mystery, drama, romance is well worth the read and time spent. Oh, one more thought, what happened to the bad guys? Did they win the prize? A definite addition to your summer reading list.

Good

About the author

Adrienne Young is the New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of the Sky in the Deep duology and the Fable series. Her books have been published in over twenty-five countries. When she’s not writing, you can find her on her yoga mat, on a walk in the woods, or planning her next travel adventure. She lives and writes in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina.