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.

March 1, 2014

Though she lacks the gift of visualizing a scent's particular effects, Lucia returns home to help with her family's fabled but foundering perfume business. A debut pitched to the Alice Hoffman and Sarah Addison Allen crowd.

Copyright 2014 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

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

Copyright 2014 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

June 15, 2014
For generations, the Lenore women have crafted an enchanted perfume, but the return of the prodigal daughter-heralded by teeming blue dragonflies-threatens to break the spell.It all began when Serena Lenore eloped with Dr. Alex Danner and moved to Borneo, where they raised two daughters in exotic bliss. Just before returning to the U.S., Serena discovered a rare variety of gardenia that seemed to respond, sentiently, to her touch, releasing a beguiling perfume. Once home in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia, she develops a rather magical perfume: Whoever wears it experiences success. Cleverly, Serena and her female descendants build a business, choosing discreet clients. Now, her granddaughter, Willow, is the matriarch of the family. Her older daughter, Mya, stands to inherit the business, given that she has stayed home, tending to Willow and the plants. Her younger daughter, Lucia, unfortunately, has no facility with scents and left the farm years ago to pursue an acting career. But now her marriage and career have fallen apart, and she has nowhere to go but home. Home, where Willow is forgetting things and Mya is tempted to change the perfume formula to get rid of a troublesome client. Tinkering with the elixir, however, risks invoking Serena's curse. Once Lucia arrives, she begins to exhibit talents that may make her Mya's rival. Willow's emotions can cause storms to rise and tree branches to fall, Mya can concoct magic potions, Lucia begins to see ominous black clouds over a certain doomed character, and the flowers themselves are charmed, but these elements seem incidental. And while the characters certainly have romances-even Willow discovers a long-forgotten love-the romance seems rote. Debut novelist Creech offers a romance embroidered with magical realism, yet the magic lacks, well, magic.

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June 1, 2014
Four generations of Lenore women have manufactured a unique, very costly perfume that endows its carefully selected wearers with spectacular success in their chosen careers. But things have started to go wrong. Willow, the president of Lenore Inc. is having memory lapses. One of the company's clients, a pop star, is causing trouble. Willow's older daughter, Mya, who has always dreamed of taking over when her mother steps down, feels threatened when younger daughter Lucia comes home after a 15-year absence. Lucia has never before manifested the family gifts, which involve visions as well as special skills with perfumery, but now she sees an ominous dark cloud hovering over Mya's head. And the rare flowers from which the perfume is made seem to be dying. Creech has created an intriguing premise in her first novel, but the plot elements related to the perfume and its powers are underdeveloped. More satisfying are the novel's Blue Ridge Mountains setting and the relationships among mother and daughters, sisters, and the men with whom they fall in love.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2014, American Library Association.)