The Red Garden by Alice Hoffman

     Every time I head to the beach (which is never quite often enough), I need an Alice Hoffman book to take me away from it all. Her stories are mesmerizing works of fiction filled with engrossing detail and usually some kind of spiritual element that ties all the threads together. I hadn't read this one yet, and I became totally lost in the intertwining stories.

     The book is like a continuing history and beginning of a small town in Massachusetts, the founder of which is a woman with undeniable spunk who is afraid of nothing but the prospect of not surviving the brutal wilderness she finds herself in. From her and her stock come the citizens of Blackwell, where bears roam freely in the woods and people survive family secrets, doomed loves, war, unjustified rumors, and an enthralling list of other obstacles. These stories weave together into the history of a place that, in the end, seems mystical and somewhat magical, but that could be any small town in America.

     If you have never read a Hoffman novel, you need to give one a try. You'll be transported, if not on a beach day, then any day you choose.