I usually really enjoy Sarah Addison Allen’s novels for the magic realism they are filled with. However, her latest, The Peach Keeper, is not my favorite.

The book never really delved deep enough into the characters, especially the character of the myserious travelling salesman Tucker Devlin, who is at the heart of this story. I never really understood him at all, there just wasn’t much to go on.

The novel is set in the South and follows two women into an unlikely friendship like their grandmothers 75 years before them. There was a lot of potential here, but the book lacked the magic of Allen’s earlier novels. I really wanted to like it, but it just fell short of the mark this time. I recommend reading any of her 3 earlier novels, and skipping this one.