Description

Emery Blackwood’s life changed forever the night her best friend was found dead and the love of her life, August Salt, was accused of murdering her. Years later, she is doing what her teenage self swore she never would: living a quiet existence on the misty, remote shores of Saoirse Island and running the family’s business, Blackwood’s Tea Shoppe Herbal Tonics & Tea Leaf Readings. But when the island, rooted in folklore and magic, begins to show signs of strange happenings, Emery knows that something is coming. The morning she wakes to find that every single tree on Saoirse has turned color in a single night, August returns for the first time in fourteen years and unearths the past that the town has tried desperately to forget.

August knows he is not welcome on Saiorse, not after the night everything changed. As a fire raged on at the Salt family orchard, Lily Morgan was found dead in the dark woods, shaking the bedrock of their tight-knit community and branding August a murderer. When he returns to bury his mother’s ashes, he must confront the people who turned their backs on him and face the one wound from his past that has never healed—Emery. But the town has more than one reason to want August gone, and the emergence of deep betrayals and hidden promises spanning generations threaten to reveal the truth behind Lily’s mysterious death once and for all.

I received an advance reader copy of Spells for Forgetting by Adrienne Young and wow! I LOVED this book! Definitely 5 stars.

The writing is evocative and eloquent, the characters are interesting, and the setting, Saiorse Island, is mysterious and intriguing. I found myself completely engrossed in August and Emery’s stories, both current and past. They overlapped gracefully and seamlessly, smoothly describing the tragedy of Saiorse.

I loved, loved, loved this and am so grateful for NetGalley and Random House Publishing for the opportunity to read this before the publication date of September 27, 2022. Special thanks to Adrienne Young for writing such a fabulous book.