Season of the Dragonflies

May 19, 2014
Creech’s debut brings a magical realist touch to a tale of choices and consequences. In early-20th-century America, 18-year-old Serena Lenore defies her businessman father and elopes with Alex Bannister, a handsome young doctor. They live for a while in Borneo, where Alex researches the medical uses of local plants, and Serena discovers a new kind of flower. After the couple returns to America, settling down in Virginia in the Blue Ridge Mountains, Serena uses the flower to create a perfume that magically bestows success upon the women who wear it. Moving ahead to the present, the narrative finds Serena’s daughter, Willow, heading the company founded by her mother, which is now called Lenore International, but beginning to lose her memory. Willow has two daughters: Mya, who has devoted herself to the business, and Lucia, who has rejected it to pursue acting in New York City. Lucia returns, however, after the failure of both her marriage and career. Meanwhile, dissatisfied customer Zoe Bennett, a fading Hollywood star, blackmails Lenore International by threatening to tell the world about the perfume, until now a secret to everyone but the company’s select clients. By turns charming and suspenseful, this is a memorable first novel. Agent: Alexandra Machinist, ICM.

July 1, 2014

In North Carolina author Creech's first novel, three headstrong women--Willow Lenore and her two grown daughters, Mya and Lucia--realize their high-end perfume business is in trouble. Few know the magical properties of the gardenias grown on the Lenore property--isolated in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains--or the secret power of attraction their perfume provides to a select clientele. Handed down from mother to daughter for generations, the formula is never changed, until the Lenore women realize the future of the business entrusted to them is threatened. Fantastical elements, such as dragonflies that follow Lucia around and friendly deer that give piggyback rides, are breezed over in a quickly moving story involving man trouble, sibling rivalry, life-changing events, Hollywood intrigue, and death. VERDICT Fans of Alice Hoffman, Sarah Addison Allen, and Tiffany Baker will enjoy this charming, fast-paced novel that lightly blends folksy magical realism with a story of strained family relationships, messy romantic entanglements, and the power of the female bond. [See Prepub Alert, 2/3/14.]--Laurie Cavanaugh, Holmes P.L., Halifax, MA

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