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Spells for Forgetting

By: Adrienne Young
Narrated by: Emily Rankin, Dan Bittner, Mark Deakins, Kimberly Farr, Ari Fliakos, Dawn Harvey, Carrington MacDuffie, Kirsten Potter, Oliver Wyman
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Publisher's summary

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • “Lush with secrets, magic, and a past that won’t stay where it belongs, this novel is (quite fittingly) spellbinding.”—JODI PICOULT, author of Wish You Were Here

A deeply atmospheric story about ancestral magic, an unsolved murder, and a second chance at true love

ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: She Reads

Emery Blackwood’s life changed forever the night her best friend was found dead and the love of her life, August Salt, was accused of murdering her. Years later, she is doing what her teenage self swore she never would: living a quiet existence on the misty, remote shores of Saoirse Island and running the family’s business, Blackwood’s Tea Shoppe Herbal Tonics & Tea Leaf Readings. But when the island, rooted in folklore and magic, begins to show signs of strange happenings, Emery knows that something is coming. The morning she wakes to find that every single tree on Saoirse has turned color in a single night, August returns for the first time in fourteen years and unearths the past that the town has tried desperately to forget.

August knows he is not welcome on Saiorse, not after the night everything changed. 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 his 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 spanning generations threaten to reveal the truth behind Lily’s mysterious death once and for all.

©2022 Adrienne Young (P)2022 Random House Audio
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Critic reviews

“With magic, murder, and prose that reads like music, Spells for Forgetting weaves together an immersive tale on the Pacific Coast island of Saoirse, where love and pain both stick to the too.”―Chandler Baker, New York Times bestselling author of The Husbands

“A thrilling, rich mystery with exquisite twists, Adrienne Young’s adult debut will trick you, bewitch you, and leave you begging for more.”―Stephanie Garber, author of the Caraval series

“Tense, lyrical, and wholly romantic, Spells for Forgetting is as immersive a story as you could ask for. I could feel the salt on my skin, I could smell the smoke, and every page felt like a tentative step into a mist concealing all of Saoirse’s darkest secrets.”―Ruth Emmie Lang, Ohioana Book Award finalist

Dear Listener,

What inspired me to write this story?
The first seed of a story always comes to me in pictures, and with Spells for Forgetting, it was the image of August Salt on a ferry, heading home to bury his mother’s ashes on the rural island where he was raised. That moment of inspiration was just the beginning of a winding, surprising journey in discovering what exactly this book is about.
Spells is very much a manifestation of my deep love for the Pacific Northwest, but at its heart, it’s a story about regrets, consequences, and the intricate and sometimes disturbing dynamics of family and community. Saoirse Island is a place I wish I could visit, not just because of its beauty or mysticism, but because of its strange inhabitants and their unique view of the world. I love exploring relationships that can’t be clearly defined or categorized, and I am incredibly intrigued by characters who are morally grey to their core. This audiobook was an opportunity to explore these things through the unsolved murder of a teenage girl, the lore that sprung from it, and the lengths one town will go to in order to preserve the world they believe in. – Adrienne Young, writer of Spells for Forgetting