Spellbound?

So, this is almost embarrassing.

I read a book last night.

Like, I got into bed, started a book, finished a book about ninety minutes later (I hope it was an hour and a half, and not two hours - I'm not totally sure), then went to bed. Way too late. Was I entranced? Perhaps by the herbal spells that feature prominently in the book?

The book was Garden Spells, by Sarah Addison Allen. It's been on my to-read list forever, so long I had forgotten why I had added it (probably one of those "other people who viewed this title also viewed..." listings), but Widener didn't have it, and I never remembered to go to the BPL and get it. But I was wandering around the other day, after picking up Swamplandia! and remembered & found it.

It's a not-very-long novel about a family that seem to be some kind of witches, that live in the South, garden, and have a magical apple tree. There's also, of course, romance, sisters, endearingly batty old ladies, a bad guy, a precocious child and...hmm, I think this story is called Practical Magic, no? But however formulaic and predictable it might have been, it was engaging and I tore through it. It was a perfect bed-read, I was sated and sleepy at the end - I just wish I had split it into two or three sessions!

The way the book was written, and the cover blurbs or something, made me think this is part of a series, maybe about the town, if not the same two sisters who are the protagonists in Garden Spells... I think it was the way that different families around town were given different characteristics, it's just asking to have spin-off after spin-off. Or you could mosey through the main family's family tree (literally, too, their apple tree is a character itself) generation by generation of strong-willed women who eventually find the right man. Or maybe not a series, but a lot of similar books? Certainly the author had a TON of books spread over a couple shelves in Copley.

I believe my original notes on the to-read listing were that this sounded like a beach book, and I was right, more or less - beach, bed, lazy day wherever. Not great literature, but if there are more out there, it might be worth sometimes having one on hand for when I don't really want to think, but just want a nice story about nice people.

Meh

Brought The Pleasures of Men (Kate Williams) to the beach on Friday (birthday beach day!) but never got around to reading it - too busy chatting with T and zoning out in the sun with some Collie Buddz on, lol. And it's a pretty heavy book for a paperback, so I wish I hadn't been lugging it around.

Especially since when I finally started reading it on Saturday it was pretty bad. The plot (serial killer in early Victorian London) was predictable but confusing at the same time, if that makes any sense, and mostly - sweet baby Jesus, the editing was TERRIBLE. Apparently it's a Penguin branch - they should be ASHAMED of themselves. Just awful typos everywhere. I wouldn't turn in a term paper that bad, so for it to be a published book??

I had been saving it for the beach because I thought, as soon as I saw the cover (I had requested it from the library based on some review somewhere) that it was going to be an easy, trashy read, and, well, it was that...