Synopsis:

A rural island community steeped in the mystical superstitions of its founders and haunted by an unsolved murder is upended by the return of the suspected killer in this deeply atmospheric novel.

Emery Blackwood’s life was forever changed on the eve of her high school graduation, when the love of her life, August Salt, was accused of murdering her best friend, Lily. Now, she is doing what her teenage self swore she never would: living a quiet existence among the community that fractured her world in two. She’d once longed to run away with August, eager to escape the misty, remote shores of Saiorse Island and chase new dreams; now, she maintains her late mother’s tea shop and cares for her ailing father. But just as the island, rooted in folklore and tradition, begins to show signs of strange happenings, August returns for the first time in fourteen years and unearths the past that no one wants to remember.

August Salt knows he is not welcome on Saiorse, not after the night that changed everything. As a fire raged on at the Salt family orchard, Lily Morgan was found dead in the dark woods, shaking the bedrock of their tight-knit community and branding August a murderer. When he returns to bury his mother’s ashes, he must confront the people who turned their backs on him and face the one wound from the past that has never healed—Emery. But the town has more than one reason to want August gone, and the emergence of deep betrayals and hidden promises that span generations threatens to reveal the truth behind Lily’s death once and for all.

Evocative and compelling, Spells for Forgetting is a vivid exploration of lost love and the unraveling of a small town and its many secrets.

I love mysterious islands. LOST is still one of my all-time favorite television shows. And while Spells for Forgetting is very mysterious, it’s more magical. I couldn’t help comparing it to The Scorpio Races by Maggie Stiefvater as I read. The autumn setting, the otherworldly island, the love story. Adrienne Young’s adult debut is the immersive read you won’t want to miss this fall!

“There were tales that only the island knew. Ones that had never been told. I knew, because I was one of them.”

Adrienne Young, Spells for Forgetting

From the first sentence, the reader is transported to Saoirse, a mystical island located off the coast of Seattle, Oregon. It’s steeped in folklore, the locals secretive and protective of the island and the orchard that provides the island’s survival. They begrudgingly endure the seasonal tourists who visit, knowing they provide the much-needed income that allows the island to stay as it is.

August left the island he was born on, along with his mother, fourteen years ago after a devastating fire at the orchard and the murder of his classmate and friend, Lily. A murder he was suspected of being involved in. But when he left the island, he left broken hearted, something no amount of time seems to be able to heal. He’s only returning now bearing his mother’s ashes, granting her last wish to be buried on the island.

“That feeling that had climbed between my bones when I stepped off the ferry wasn’t just the island or the orchard or the night that everything changed. It was Emery Blackwood.”

Adrienne Young, Spells for Forgetting