The Silver Bough

By: Lisa Tuttle
Location: FIC TUT
Genre: Fantasy and magic!!

The Silver Bough is a gentle fantasy that weaves Scottish mythology, magic and romance into a seamless tale of wonder.
It has a librarian in it and an apple orchard- well there are two things in common with me. Except in Nelson they never had a "Apple Queen" anyway I am too much of a hobbit to win a title of Apple Queen, but in this story- that title has magic, lore and destiny.

 Appleton, despite its name, is a Scottish town. Myths and rumors surround it, and there's always been a little aura of magic around the area. The town thrives on its apple industry--at least, it used to before it fell into economic shambles. The rational explanation for this decline is that the man who owned the apple orchard and mill disappeared without a trace, leaving his property mortgaged and the town without its most important industry. The magical one is that the Apple Queen, crowned at the apple festival, did not eat the gift of the golden apple provided to the town. Eating it with her sweetheart would've brought her her heart's desire and the town's success, but spurning the gift meant ruining the town.

Fast forward 50 years, and that's where this book starts. It follows the lives of three women, recent newcomers to the town. We watch as they fall into the magic and discover what they truly want out of life.

The prose here is absolutely beautiful. The first half of the novel seemed to go by a bit slowly, and the second half a bit too quickly. Overall, though, I thought this was a good example of the genre, and I would recommend this to those who like magical realism says Kara from Goodreads: