From the Inside Flap
Welcome to Bascomb, North Carolina, where it seems that where
it seems everyone has a story to tell about the Waverley women. The old
house that's been in the family for generations, the walled garden that
mysteriously blooms year round, the rumors and innuendoes of dangerous
loves and tragic passions. Eccentric, reclusive, or renegade, there's not a
one that wasn't somehow touched by magic.

As the town's successful caterer, Claire has always clung closely to the
Waverleys' roots in their enchanted soil, tending the family garden from
which she makes her much sought-after delicacies. She has everything she
thinks she needs - until one day she finds a vine of ivy creeping into her
garden and knows that everything is about to change.

Then her prodigal sister Sydney arrives with her five-year-old daughter and
a dark secret she hopes to keep well hidden. And suddenly Claire's
carefully tended life is about to run gloriously out of control.

Sarah Addison Allen's beguiling and luminous new novel is sure to cast its
spell over even the most sceptical heart.

From the Back Cover
`Business was doing well, because all the locals knew that
dishes made from the flowers that grew around the apple tree in the
Waverley garden could affect the eater in curious ways. The biscuits with
lilac jelly the Ladies Aid ordered for their meetings once a month gave
them the ability to keep secrets. The fried dandelion buds over
marigold-petal rice, stuffed pumpkin blossoms, and rose-hip soup ensured
your company would notice only the beauty of your home and never the flaws
. . . '