The Peach Keeper

by Sarah Addison Allen

I REALLY enjoyed this book. The story was a reminder of the importance of friendships and how TRUE friendships, though they might fade, never truly disintegrate. Real friendships grow roots so deep that they last for a lifetime.

Some SPOILERS beyond this point!

This story is really about friendship and the lengths that a person will go to to defend the foundation that friendship is based on. Agatha's decision to help Georgie through a difficult situation reveals the love she felt for Georgie. Even in her old age, even after she and Georgie's friendship seemed to slip away, she was willing to lie and take the fall for Georgie's teenage actions. Agatha's promise transcended time and years of broken friendship. The peach tree that grew over Tucker Devlin's gravesite seemd to represent the secret that Georgie and Agatha shared and kept for many years. The removal of the tree and the revealing of Tucker Devlin's grave represented the release of that secret because it was time for Willa and Paxton to know that part of their history so that they could create the lives they wanted for themselves.

I highly recommend this book.

The Blue Bistro

Have you read The Help by Kathryn Stockett? This book is nothing like The Help in content, BUT it is just as captivating. I couldn't put it down! The Blue Bistro takes place in Nantucket and it spotlights a young woman with an inability to settle down. Meet Adrienne (yes, I occasionally thought of Rocky while reading). She's been in the hotel business for some time, but never in the restaurant business. She goes looking for a job and finds herself at The Blue Bistro. Meet Thatcher, the owner, who happens to be looking for an assistant manager, but finds more than that. Adrienne immediately spots his watch, which she guesses to be a $10,000 Patek Philippe. On her first night at the restaurant Adrienne finds her new boss, Thatcher, to be actually quite, well, bossy. He doesn't like her outfit and he orders her around all night. She came to Nantucket with three rules written on a napkin: (1) Become self-sufficient (2) Do not lie about past (3) Exercise good judgment about men. It seems like they would be easy to follow...