A Snicker of Magic

A SNICKER OF MAGIC is an imaginative and beguiling book with a very original premise. The girl who sees words sprouting everywhere but is tongue-tied finds her voice while finding the solution to the town's curse. The author Natalie Lloyd sweeps you into Midnight Gulch, where Blackberry Sunrise ice cream evokes memories and people try to help one another. There's a sweetness, without sentimentality, to the assorted eccentric characters, and a hopeful conclusion to the well-woven story. The novel makes you wish that the Tennessee town really existed. But perhaps you only have to look in the right places to find magic elsewhere. The writing is "splendiferous," to quote a favorite word of the two lead characters, as evidenced in this passage: "Someday, when I got brave enough to taste Blackberry Sunrise I hoped that exact memory is the first one I'd think of: The sunset colors stretched across the sky. Tiny red leaves twirled down around us along the wooded path. I wanted to remember Boone's lonesome whistle and the way Cleo's cigarette smoke curled so elegantly, so gracefully up toward the sky. I wanted to remember the way Mama kept looking up toward the clouds, smiling at the birds swooping through the treetops. I never wanted to forget all the ways we were connected that day: by our shadows and sunlight. By pounding hearts and a starry maybe.

"By the nearly silent flutter of our broken wings."