Summary from GoodReads:

It’s the dubious distinction of thirty-year-old Willa Jackson to hail from a fine old Southern family of means that met with financial ruin generations ago. The Blue Ridge Madam—built by Willa’s great-great-grandfather during Walls of Water’s heyday, and once the town’s grandest home—has stood for years as a lonely monument to misfortune and scandal. And Willa herself has long strived to build a life beyond the brooding Jackson family shadow. No easy task in a town shaped by years of tradition and the well-marked boundaries of the haves and have-nots.

But Willa has lately learned that an old classmate—socialite do-gooder Paxton Osgood—of the very prominent Osgood family, has restored the Blue Ridge Madam to her former glory, with plans to open a top-flight inn. Maybe, at last, the troubled past can be laid to rest while something new and wonderful rises from its ashes. But what rises instead is a skeleton, found buried beneath the property’s lone peach tree, and certain to drag up dire consequences along with it.

For the bones—those of charismatic traveling salesman Tucker Devlin, who worked his dark charms on Walls of Water seventy-five years ago—are not all that lay hidden out of sight and mind. Long-kept secrets surrounding the troubling remains have also come to light, seemingly heralded by a spate of sudden strange occurrences throughout the town.

Now, thrust together in an unlikely friendship, united by a full-blooded mystery, Willa and Paxton must confront the dangerous passions and tragic betrayals that once bound their families—and uncover truths of the long-dead that have transcended time and defied the grave to touch the hearts and souls of the living.

Resonant with insight into the deep and lasting power of friendship, love, and tradition, The Peach Keeper is a portrait of the unshakable bonds that—in good times and bad, from one generation to the next—endure forever.

My Review:

There’s something magical about Sarah Addison Allen’s writing, and The Peach Keeper follows that path.

While romance is always a nice, comforting theme in Allen’s books, this book also dealt with friendship – the kind that lasts and the bonds that women can make together.  A bit of a mystery, a touch of magic, the charm of the setting – all these combine to make The Peach Keeper another on my list of comfort books to read on that rainy day.

Willa and Paxton are two completely unique characters, so different from one another and each wishing for, essentially, what the other one has.  Rich and poor, both have relatives that were bonded together, but torn apart by class imbalance once Willa’s great-grandfather lost his money.  Now the old home built by Willa’s family and purchased by Paxton’s is being renovated and all sorts of secrets are coming to the suface.

I mentioned romance earlier, and of course there is romance here.  But it’s the slow blooming kind (as slow as a book this length will allow).  I think my favorite was the relationship between Paxton and Sebastian, just because it dealt with some things that really are not all that common in the books I’ve read.  As to what that is.. well I suppose you’ll just have to read it, won’t you?

Check out these review(s):

Chick Lit Reviews

Boston Book Bums