The Sugar Queen

May 5, 2008
Allen’s second bewitching offering (after Garden Spells
) is a candy jar of magical characters and mystical adventures set in an ordinary North Carolina town. At 27, Josey Cirrini is “plain and just this side of plump” and trying to make up for her legendary childhood temper tantrums by caring for her aging, widowed mother Margaret. Her closet features neatly stacked junk food packages and romance novels, and her life chugs along. But as the book opens, Della Lee Baker, waitress at the local greasy spoon, shows up in Josey’s closet, having propped a ladder against the house and climbed silently in overnight. She’s hiding from someone or something, and has no intention of leaving anytime soon. Instead, the very direct Della Lee sends Josey on a series and missions and misadventures that encourage our low self-esteem heroine to step outside her box and away from her snack-filled closet. As in Allen’s previous work, there’s an element of the supernatural (self-help books that literally follow one around; tears that sprout mysterious tropical flowers), and again it works. Words such as sweet
, charming
and delightful
are weak accolades for such a pleasurable book.

May 1, 2008
Allen's new magical realism romance follows her "New York Times" best-selling debut, "Garden Spells", and is also set in western North Carolina. Josey Cirrini, in her late twenties and atoning for her unruly childhood, drones as a companion for her rich and domineering widowed mother. Josey's sole comfort is the secret stash of romances, travel magazines, and candy in her closetthe same closet in which sleazy Della Lee shows up one November, triggering a month of unexpected change. Josey also meets Chloe, who attracts books like some folks draw stray dogs and cats (you'll never again consider a book an inanimate object). In 13 candy-themed chapters, secrets from the past unravel, and old and new dreams and romances come to fruition. Allen's inspired descriptions of Della Lee's ex-boyfriend Julian wonderfully explain the power "bad boys" exert over even good women. Although not as strong as her debut, this contemporary romance still uses magic to captivating effect. Fans of "Garden Spells" will want this; for fiction collections. [See Prepub Alert, "LJ" 1/08; see also Neal Wyatt's web-only RA Crossroads for a segment on "Garden Spells".Ed.]Rebecca Kelm, Northern Kentucky Univ. Lib., Highland Heights

Copyright 2008 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from April 15, 2008
As innocently satisfying as a gooey cupcake, as seductively indulgent as a champagne truffle, Allens delectable follow-up to her sprightly best-selling debut (Garden Spells, 2007) is another tasty trek into a world where things are not quite as they seem. For Josey, lifes disappointments are made more palatable by raiding the larder of candies and cookies secretly stashed within her bedroom closet, while Chloe finds salvation through books that seem to come to her unbidden with just the right advice at just the right moment. But theres more to life than chocolate and books (really?), and love, in all its first-blush tenderness and second-stage confusion, is a subject Allen explores with exquisite insight and winsome elegance. While Josey pines for the enigmatic Adam, Chloe aches after Jakes foolish betrayal. Helping the women weather these crises of the heart is Della Lee, abad girl hiding out from man troublesof her ownin Joseys closet, along with the MoonPiesand Milky Ways. Like the most decadently addictive bonbons, once started, Allens magically entrancing novel is impossible to put down.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2008, American Library Association.)