First Frost: A Novel by Sarah Addison Allen

                       I didn’t know there was a sequel to Garden Spells until my mother told me.  The funny thing is, I told my mother about Garden Spells.  Now she’s the one to tell me about the sequel.  Sometimes things just work out that way.              

                It’s been years since Sydney Waverly returned to her hometown of Bascom, North Carolina.  Now she’s married to her childhood friend, Henry, and is desperately trying to have a baby.  She’s also trying to understand her teenage daughter, Bay.  While Sydney desperately wanted to fit in as a teenager, being part of the popular crowd is not something Bay cares to do.  That does not keep her from having an interest in the most popular boy in school, though.  She feels they belong together.  How exactly, she’s not fully sure.  All she knows is that somehow they do.

                Across town, Sydney’s sister Claire has put her catering business aside in order to run a candy making business.  She’s still using her special magic from the garden, but it’s not the same.  For one thing, Claire has run out of the ingredients she usually gets from her garden and must get them from somewhere else.  Also, the new business is taking up all her time, and she is burning out. 

To make things even worse, Claire is starting to doubt she has any Waverly magic at all; a family trait she has always relied on.  Her husband, Tyler, doesn’t believe in the magic, and her daughter Mariah doesn’t appear to have any powers.  If it’s true that she’s is not magical, this would change how Claire has seen herself for so long.

While Claire is struggling, the last thing she needs is for a new man to show up in town.  A man who tells Claire the woman she thought was her mother really wasn’t.  This news sends Claire on an even darker path than the one she was on before.  In this dark place, Claire must decide whether she will do what she usually does and only rely on herself, or will she, for once, lean on her family for help?

                Just like with Garden Spells, I really enjoyed this book.  The only hitch was Tyler.  I really liked him in the first book.  This time around, I’m not so sure about him.  He acts as though he doesn’t believe in the Waverly magic, when in truth he does.  He only says he doesn’t so Claire knows he loves her for her and not her magic.  As admirable as this is, Tyler’s denial of the magic is part of what makes Claire doubt it.  Not that Claire tells Tyler about what is going on in her mind.  She keeps that to herself.  Although, I have to think that had either one opened up about what they were really thinking and feeling, everyone would have been much better off.

                Everyone else in the book is really great, though.  Even Bay’s teen angst was done well.  It wasn’t too much and was very understandable.  Personally, I think Bay’s friend Phin may have more of an interest in her than he lets on.  If there is a third book, it will be interesting to see what happens between them.  It would also be good to see what happens between Bay and her love interest, Josh.  Yes, there are definitely some storylines that are unfinished at the end of this book.

                Another storyline I would love to read more about is the relationship between Claire and Sydney’s cousin Evanelle and Fred, the man who lives with her.  Fred and Evanelle have lived together since Fred broke up with his long-term boyfriend years before.  Living together for so long, Fred has started picking up Evanelle’s magic of giving people things they need before they need it.  With Evanelle’s life coming to an end, I would be sad to see her go in a third book, but I would be interested in seeing how Fred takes over her role in the town.

                While I don’t know if there is a third book in the works, I would be excited to read it if there is.  As there are years between the publication of the first and second book, it may take years for a third book, if one is even planned.  All I can do for now is periodically check to see if the story is going to continue, and keep enjoying the story as it is.