Abracadabra

A Bewitching and Impractical Novel of Love and Magic

by Evanne Hardin Gray

In the spirit of Practical Magic and First Frost, a modern-day magic folk tale weaves a fantasy of love, secrets, spellbooks, and family bonds into evocative prose ….

It’s common knowledge in Duran Hill that some women in the Kinley family have certain gifts … and certain curses … running through their bloodlines. But for three sisters in all but name — Rachel, Juliette, and their cousin Sylvia — the ties that bind them close as ivy throughout their childhood are pulled apart in adolescence when both the gift and curse of that power is revealed between them.

Since that fateful incident, sensible Juliette has tailored a perfect and perfectly-ordinary life which unravels after she marries — and loses — the love of her life. Sylvia, drawn to the dark side, sets up a shop that caters to all the mystical powers the latter generations of the Kinley family shunned. And Rachel, the wild child, in whom its magic seems to create a charmed life, is a carefree wanderer who finds herself suddenly drawn home again.

Her arrival will stir old rivalries and test forgotten bonds in the brief span of a few weeks. But when an old friend in desperate trouble seeks her out, she will impulsively unleash the dangerous secret behind their power: one which has lain forgotten in the Kinley house for two generations.

From the Siren’s song of a dead man’s violin to a jar full of harmless-looking buttons, nothing under the shadow of the family’s roof is what it seems — nothing in their bloodline is safe from the dangerous past.

For Juliette, it brings a test of whether love that has withered can bloom again. For Sylvia, a question of whether a dangerous mistake can only be endured until it destroys you. And for Rachel, the choice is the price between the future of the souls she loves most in life and a powerful force that both makes her the enigma she is — and makes to destroy her like embers caught in a firewind.

Against the backdrop of Southern charm, Scottish superstitions, and bewitching romance, ABRACADABRA casts a spell which cannot be undone, from the ache of lost love to the familial links between souls which go as deep as blood and bone.

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Thanks so much for this chance to share an extract of my new novel Abracadabra with all the readers at Angel’s Book Nook! It’s an atmospheric read that’s perfect for fans of Practical Magic. This scene provides you with a glimpse of the story’s setting, the cozy little Southern town where drama will soon unfold for our trio of conflicted heroines.

The town of Duran Hill, North Carolina knows the witch’s story well. It’s a good ghost story, as good as the ones about buried Civil War gold along the creek, or the body buried beneath the old railroad crossing.

Ghost stories are a dime a dozen, however, in any town that’s as old as this one. Duran Hill can boast its lineage from all manner of humanity: Irish and Scottish immigrants, ex-slaves from Africa, traders and pirates from the coasts, and refugees from Europe’s wars. There were plenty of languages forgotten here, plenty of faiths practiced, although most of the landscape was dotted with churches of various denominations.

In every place where a variety of people exists, there’s always a variety of customs and lifestyles. Some of them are ordinary, some strange, others simply dangerous — either because they scare people by reputation, or by actual experience. Even in a town as peaceful as Duran Hill, where the fall leaves became a sea of sunset colors in October and a snow day sends children sliding down every steep bank or hillside on sleds or trash can lids, there are still things that don’t quite fit. Things that make people uneasy or afraid.

One thing that keeps alive stories of witches and ghosts is a place on main street, near the corner, just past the print shop and the defunct doughnut house turned into an instrument repair shop. A darkened little corner of the street, where the paint peeling from the brick front only makes its shabbiness all the more repulsive at a glance.

A place called the witch’s shop. Maybe jokingly, maybe not. It all depends on your point of view.

Peering through its streaky windows, you can’t see much of the dim interior. The name painted on the window, ‘Abracadabra,’ in streaky red paint, doesn’t give much of a clue, either. But that’s because most customers already know what’s inside.

 

Evanne Hardin Gray has spent most of her adulthood (and part of her childhood) writing novels, short stories, and screenplays. She has family roots in both New England and the South, which is where she currently writes (sometimes as a ‘ghost’), gardens, and collects books and ideas for them.

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