The Girl Who Chased The Moon

Sarah Addison Allen is one of those authors, at least for me, that make me happy without a real definitive reason why. She's Southern, writes romances and has unexplained magical elements to her books, and yet I love them. The Girl who chased the moon is her third book, and the greatest compliment I can pay a book I give to Ms. Allen. I was able to completely drown out everything going on around me while I was reading this. I didn't hear my coworkers complaining about things, I didn't hear the copier in the other room making screeching noises, and I was completely absorbed into her world. The story revolves around Emily, a teenager who moves in with her grandfather after her mother dies. Her grandfather, a giant, doesn't really know how to deal with a teenage girl, so their neighbor Julia helps acclimate the girl, despite a tumultuous past with Emily's mother. Emily meets a strange boy, who let me assure you before you start getting mad at me, is not a werewolf or a vampire. Ms. Allen simply would not put me through that with all the Twilight crap around here. Thought I was honestly a little afraid he would end up being one or the other. Emily tries to figure out his secret, while bonding with Julia. Julia has moved back into town after several years away after her father dies to take over his restaurant, and to do some really awesome sounding baking. She tries to ignore Sawyer, her high school crush with whom she shares more than just a past, and counts down the days until she can leave the town again. It's a romance novel all dressed up in cute, and delightful to the end. It's not the best book of 2010 (see my last post), but it's the first one I was so wrapped up in I was able to ignore all of my coworkers for 30 minutes 3 days straight, and that's a book worth recommending.