Format: eGalley
Release Date: September 1, 2015
Publisher: William Morrow
Source: Publisher via Edelweiss
Genre: Contemporary Women's Lit | Magic Realism
With echoes of the alchemy of Practical Magic, the lushness of Saving CeeCee Honeycutt, and the darkly joyful wickedness of the Witches of East End, Ellen Herrick’s debut novel spins an enchanting love story about a place where magic whispers just beneath the surface and almost anything is possible, if you aren’t afraid to listen
The Sparrow sisters are as tightly woven into the seaside New England town of Granite Point as the wild sweet peas that climb the stone walls along the harbor. Sorrel, Nettie and Patience are as colorful as the beach plums on the dunes and as mysterious as the fog that rolls into town at dusk.
Patience is the town healer and when a new doctor settles into Granite Point he brings with him a mystery so compelling that Patience is drawn to love him, even as she struggles to mend him. But when Patience Sparrow’s herbs and tinctures are believed to be implicated in a local tragedy, Granite Point is consumed by a long-buried fear—and its three hundred year old history resurfaces as a modern day witch-hunt threatens. The plants and flowers, fruit trees and high hedges begin to wither and die, and the entire town begins to fail; fishermen return to the harbor empty-handed, and blight descends on the old elms that line the lanes.
It seems as if Patience and her town are lost until the women of Granite Point band together to save the Sparrow. As they gather, drawing strength from each other, will they be able to turn the tide and return life to Granite Point?
The Sparrow Sisters is a beautiful, haunting, and thoroughly mesmerizing novel that will capture your imagination.

THE SPARROW SISTERS, Ellen Herrick's debut, stole my weekend and I don't mind it one bit! This novel is completely bewitching, it's magic realism at its finest, and the type of novel that will completely engulf you with from beginning to end. It's a charming storybook-like small town story that is rife with colorful characters, brimming with quiet romance, family, and friendship, and abundant with herbal trivia and magic.
I fell in love with THE SPARROW SISTERS after the first three chapters, Patience and Dr. Henry Carlyle had me swooning in the middle, EHerrick broke my heart and had me close to sobbing at one point, but things ended in such a hopeful note in the end. Not just in terms of the conclusion, but also with the prospect of more books to come.
THE SPARROW SISTERS is the perfect Fall read and highly recommended for fans of Sarah Addison Allen and Alice Hoffman.
More at Ellen Herrick's Website
Once there were four Sparrow Sisters. Everyone called them the Sisters, capitalized, and referred to them as a group, even when just one had come to the post office to collect the mail. “The Sisters are here for their package,” the postmistress would say, calling her clerk to the desk. Or, “What do you know, the Sisters are taking the train into the city.” All four had left Granite Point over the years on school trips to Boston and for the symphony or the museum, but they always came back; it was home. The only Sparrow sister who did leave town forever did so in the hardest way. The oldest Sparrow, if only by seven minutes, was Marigold, Sorrel’s twin. She was the real homebody, the one people still shook their heads over, and she actually left Granite Point just twice; the first time to accompany her father to a meeting with lawyers upon the death of her mother and the last upon her own death, in a smallish wooden box nestled inside an Adams’s Hardware bag on the arm of her twin. Sorrel took Marigold to the Outer Beach, past the break north of the seal colony, to scatter her ashes in the Atlantic.
Now there were only three Sparrows left in the house at the top of the hill overlooking the far harbor. Long ago this house that their great-great (and more) grandmother Clarissa Sparrow built had rung with the shouts and laughter of her four sons and the many Sparrow sons that followed. It was made of the timber used to craft the whaling fleet that sailed out from the harbor and into the dark waves. Her husband was a sea captain so fond of his trade that Clarissa chose wood from her father’s shipyard with the idea that if George Sparrow loved his boat so much, surely he would be called home to a house made of the very same wood. She’d even built a widow’s walk high above the street so that she could watch for him to sail back to her. Eventually, the widow’s walk would earn its name several times over.
By the time the Sparrow Sisters lived in the house on Ivy Street, lanes and hedges and other houses had grown up, blocking all but a narrow sliver of the deep blue water of Big Point Bay. Ivy House, as everyone called it, stood tall and white as it had for all those years, home to the last of the Sparrows altogether. The house was beautiful and spare with high ceilings and windows of wavy glass. It was most often filled with the flowers and herbs, vegetables and fruits of the Sparrow Sisters Nursery. Like their mother, Honor Sparrow, dead now for twenty-some years—gone on the very day her youngest daughter, Impatiens, arrived—the sisters all had green thumbs. It was ordained, really. They had each been named after a botanical, mostly flowers, and as their mother kept producing girls, the names became slightly ridiculous. But Honor was a keen gardener and in darkest winter, calling her daughter’s names reminded her that spring would come again. For months after her death the older girls hated their names and all they recalled for them. By the time they founded the Sparrow Sisters Nursery, though, each thoroughly embraced their names as the sign they were
Once there were four Sparrow Sisters. Everyone called them the Sisters, capitalized, and referred to them as a group, even when just one had come to the post office to collect the mail. “The Sisters are here for their package,” the postmistress would say, calling her clerk to the desk. Or, “What do you know, the Sisters are taking the train into the city.” All four had left Granite Point over the years on school trips to Boston and for the symphony or the museum, but they always came back; it was home. The only Sparrow sister who did leave town forever did so in the hardest way. The oldest Sparrow, if only by seven minutes, was Marigold, Sorrel’s twin. She was the real homebody, the one people still shook their heads over, and she actually left Granite Point just twice; the first time to accompany her father to a meeting with lawyers upon the death of her mother and the last upon her own death, in a smallish wooden box nestled inside an Adams’s Hardware bag on the arm of her twin. Sorrel took Marigold to the Outer Beach, past the break north of the seal colony, to scatter her ashes in the Atlantic.
Now there were only three Sparrows left in the house at the top of the hill overlooking the far harbor. Long ago this house that their great-great (and more) grandmother Clarissa Sparrow built had rung with the shouts and laughter of her four sons and the many Sparrow sons that followed. It was made of the timber used to craft the whaling fleet that sailed out from the harbor and into the dark waves. Her husband was a sea captain so fond of his trade that Clarissa chose wood from her father’s shipyard with the idea that if George Sparrow loved his boat so much, surely he would be called home to a house made of the very same wood. She’d even built a widow’s walk high above the street so that she could watch for him to sail back to her. Eventually, the widow’s walk would earn its name several times over.
By the time the Sparrow Sisters lived in the house on Ivy Street, lanes and hedges and other houses had grown up, blocking all but a narrow sliver of the deep blue water of Big Point Bay. Ivy House, as everyone called it, stood tall and white as it had for all those years, home to the last of the Sparrows altogether. The house was beautiful and spare with high ceilings and windows of wavy glass. It was most often filled with the flowers and herbs, vegetables and fruits of the Sparrow Sisters Nursery. Like their mother, Honor Sparrow, dead now for twenty-some years—gone on the very day her youngest daughter, Impatiens, arrived—the sisters all had green thumbs. It was ordained, really. They had each been named after a botanical, mostly flowers, and as their mother kept producing girls, the names became slightly ridiculous. But Honor was a keen gardener and in darkest winter, calling her daughter’s names reminded her that spring would come again. For months after her death the older girls hated their names and all they recalled for them. By the time they founded the Sparrow Sisters Nursery, though, each thoroughly embraced their names as the sign they were
Did someone say magical realism?! I am in
ReplyDeleteYou will love this! I saw your weekly photos, the landscape in your area is so lush! And so is this tale :)
DeleteNot really my genre but the cover is so tranquil. Loved your review.
ReplyDeleteThank you for checking it out :)
DeleteOh I love magical realism, Braine! One of my favorite TV shows (a long time ago) was charmed. And I loved Practical Magic. I think I have to meet the Sparrow Sisters, too :)
ReplyDeleteGreat review!!
Lexxie @ (un)Conventional Bookviews
I know you got this book too, you gotta bump it up the pile
DeleteI'm hooked, Braine. I haven't read any magical realism in quite some time but you caught me with your descriptions of the Sisters and the town. And then that excerpt...just enough to see that the writing is great. The Sparrow Sisters is going on my wishlist! :)
ReplyDeleteI love this! I want to broadcast it to the universe, have even the aliens read this!! lol
DeleteAck. This sounds sooo good! Thanks for the recommendation. I'll have to wait until it's out, because I don't do well with ebooks. Lol.
ReplyDeleteI hope you love it, Joy, I think you will though because the writing is simply beautiful not to mention the story itself.
DeleteI haven't read many magical realism books, but I like the genre a lot. This one sounds fantastic, Braine. And it stole your weekend? I'm in! :)
ReplyDeleteGreat review!
You gotta try this then, have an open mind and an eager heart and you won't be disappointed.
DeleteI love magical realism! Adding this one to my TBR. Great review!
ReplyDeleteYipee! Thanks, Lekeisha!
DeleteIt is so hard for me to resist magic in anything! I blame it on my love for the H.P. series and watching way too much Bewitched when I was little. :P
ReplyDeleteThis sounds like a great read! Lovely review.
Don't resist, your reading life will be better if you try this ;)
DeleteOMG it sounds just right for my tastes and as soon as I saw you compare her to Sarah Addison Allen I knew it!
ReplyDeleteI'm requesting this one right now thanks Braine!
xo
Get it, you won't be sorry!
DeleteThe Sparrow Sisters sound so intriguing! I loved the excerpt too. I'm totally naive when it comes to magical realism, but this definitely sounds good. And to steal your entire weekend from you? Then it MUST have been amazing!! :)
ReplyDeleteYou have to try some magic realism, it's a great genre. It's fantasy meets women's fiction.
DeleteI just added it. Wow, it sounds fantastic - and your review is unusually subdued, which suggests awe :) That much more reason for me to jump on this one!
ReplyDeleteHa! You noticed! I did struggle with the review, I wanted to gush but decided less is more. Let the excerpt do the magic
Deleteenchanting and a great fall read def sounds like it has a lot going for it
ReplyDeleteIt's all sorts of awesome. If this wasn't a book, I'd totally cuddle it!
DeleteOh I am so glad you loved this one I picked it up a couple of weeks ago, and I was hoping it would be a fantastic, magical read. I am so looking forward to reading it.
ReplyDeleteOh gosh it's magic!
DeleteOkay, it sounds like I need to get this one :D
ReplyDeleteDo you read magic realism? I didn't know that!
DeleteOh it's great that you had such a great time like that, it's the first time I hear about the book but now I'm intrigued!
ReplyDeleteGive it a try, you just might like it :)
DeleteYou had me at magic! It sounds a real treat and will need to check it out!
ReplyDeleteThat's the perfect word "treat", this is my shortbreak cookie!
DeleteHm... don't like the sound of sobbing, but you make it sound so good! I love magical realism and so can't wait to meet these characters. Brilly review!!
ReplyDeleteHahaha! It's the good kind of sobbing :)
DeleteI haven't read any of this niche of magical realism yet. It does sound like a great fall read.
ReplyDeleteWhich is odd... or maybe it's just me... because the story is set during Summer. Maybe it's the cover or the release date. It gave me that warm nutmeg/cinammon feels though. Told you, it's magic!
DeleteI wish that I had some of the Sisters' magic touch with plants because I only have to look at a plant to make it wilt, haha! Glad you loved this so much sis! :D
ReplyDeleteRight?! I don't have a green thumb but I try every year. At least I can now grow tomatoes, squash, and managed to grow some basil from seed! lol
DeleteHaven't read a book like this in a long time. I really enjoyed the excerpt.
ReplyDeleteYou're due for one then :)
DeleteThis sounds so good and something that I would like. Great review, I will have to check it out-thanks for sharing!
ReplyDeleteThis will be a good change of pace for you.
DeleteI'm kicking myself for passing up on the physical ARC at the library for this one!!! It wasn't really in my genre so I left it for someone else to enjoy. Now I don't work there anymore so I'll just have to go in and ask if it's still there - they still love me ;)
ReplyDeleteGreat review!! You're really killing my TBR, though...
Oh my! You should've at least read the first couple of chapters! Oh well, you can always borrow it, right?
DeleteI love magic realism so I'll definitely have to check this out!! Especially since it made you feel ALL the emotions.. :D
ReplyDeleteLovely review, Braine! :)
It's worth checking out at least even if you end up deciding it's not for you
DeleteAt first I was going pass over this because the cover really didn't say much to me, but after reading your review, I had to change my mind. I love magic and mystery. Thanks for sharing.
ReplyDeletesherry @ fundinmental
You're welcome, I had a blast with this one so I can't help but push it like crack on everyone! lol
DeleteWell hello new fall book! I love magical realism and this sounds delightful. I wonder if it is on audio. Either way it is going on my list!
ReplyDeleteI think it does! I hope you grab a copy and more importantly, enjoy it!
DeleteLove that you fell in love with this book within the first few chapters! And from a debut novel too! Great review girl!
ReplyDeleteNaomi @ Naomi’s Reading Palace
this kind of reminds of another book I read "a while back" about three sister who had a little magic, I loved it so much. I may have to check this out Braine, it sounds excellent!
ReplyDeleteThis is the first review I've read for The Sparrow Sisters, and I'm so glad you really enjoyed it! My blog tour for this title is next month on the 15th, so you'll see my thoughts VERY soon. I knew the story would be enchanting from the moment I read the synopsis, so I'm excited to witness the magical beauty of this story myself!
ReplyDeleteThis sounds so cool, thank you for sharing :) I'm really loving witchy things
ReplyDelete