REVIEW: Sweetly by Jackson Pearce

Sweetly

Jackson Pearce
312 pages
Publisher: Little, Brown
Release Date: August 23rd, 2011
Source: Hardcover from Publisher

SWEETLY is a modernization of Hansel and Gretel and a companion book to SISTERS RED.

Twelve years ago, Gretchen, her twin sister, and her brother went looking for a witch in the forest. They found something. Maybe it was a witch, maybe a monster, they aren’t sure—they were running too fast to tell. Either way, Gretchen’s twin sister was never seen again.

Years later, after being thrown out of their house, Gretchen and Ansel find themselves in Live Oak, South Carolina, a place on the verge of becoming a ghost town. They move in with Sophia Kelly, a young and beautiful chocolatier owner who opens not only her home, but her heart to Gretchen and Ansel.

Yet the witch isn’t gone—it’s here, lurking in the forests of Live Oak, preying on Live Oak girls every year after Sophia Kelly’s infamous chocolate festival. But Gretchen is determined to stop running from witches in the forest, and start fighting back. Alongside Samuel Reynolds, a boy as quick with a gun as he is a sarcastic remark, Gretchen digs deeper into the mystery of not only what the witch is, but how it chooses its victims. Yet the further she investigates, the more she finds herself wondering who the real monster is, and if love can be as deadly as it is beautiful.

   The world of Sweetly is undoubtedly sweet. With chocolates that wash away your fears and kitchen appliances in pastel candy colors, Sophia Kelly's chocolatier is a place everyone will want to live in, even if the forest looms right beside it.

   Gretchen and her brother Ansel have been kicked out by theuir stepmother, now that Gretchen is eighteen. The inseperable brother and sister have been trying to cope with the loss of their sister, mother, and father for years.

   The best way in Gretchen's mind was to leave Washington. And so the two of them hop into their car and drive off, only for their car to breakdown in a small town close to their destination.

   So begins the new mysterious life in Sophia Kelly's chocolatier. Gretchen has never felt safer or happier or loved in her life. That is until she meets Samuel and sea shells and darker secrets.

   Never having read any of Jackson Pearce's novels, Sweetly was a surprise for me. The world she had created in this modern retelling of Hansel and Gretel was nothing like I expected. I loved Pearce's simple writing style that flowed in its simplicity. The characters were throbbing with life and the world was pulsing with vivid imagery. The plot was moving at a pace of perfection, taking me along and never leaving me lagging behind.

   Dive into Sweetly with a cup of tea. You'll be looking for your very own small town chocolatier before you know it.

I love the cover. The purple and black is haunting and compelling,
as are the trees curling into that face.

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