Sarah Addison Allen's Garden Spells The Fifth Selection In The Barnes & Noble Recommends Program

Barnes & Noble, Inc. (NYSE: BKS), the world’s largest bookseller, announced that Sarah Addison Allen’s Garden Spells (Bantam Books) will be the fifth selection in the Barnes & Noble Recommends program. The book goes on sale tomorrow, August 28, and can be purchased at any Barnes & Noble store or online at Barnes & Noble.com (www.bn.com/recommends). "Sarah Addison Allen’s Garden Spells is a tender, bewitching love story, told with captivating invention,” said Steve Riggio, chief executive officer of Barnes & Noble, Inc. "Filled with the irresistible magic of dreams come true, this story will cast a spell on even the most unbelieving heart.” This magical novel revolves around the women of the Waverly family – 34-year-old Claire Waverly who lives alone in the family house, Claire’s rebellious sister Sydney who ran away years ago, and Sydney’s young daughter Bay, all heirs to an unusual legacy. In a fenced plot behind their Queen Anne style home in Bascom, North Carolina, an apple tree bearing magical fruit looms over a garden filled with herbs and edible flowers that possess the power to affect anyone who eats them in curious ways. Using her grandmother’s mystical culinary traditions, Claire has built a successful catering business on the family’s peculiar gift for making life-altering delicacies. As the story unfolds, the Waverley women, with the help of their elderly cousin Evanelle, endowed with her own uncanny skills, redeem the past, embrace the present, and take a joyful leap into the future. As one of Barnes & Noble’s booksellers who helped pick this selection said, "Combine two parts Alice Hoffman (author of Practical Magic) and one part Rebecca Wells (Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood) with a splash of Sue Monk Kidd (The Secret Life of Bees), and you have Garden Spells. A great read for anyone who loves cooking, Southern fiction, or just a great love story.” Another bookseller said, "A sweet story that adds hope to the world.” The Barnes & Noble Recommends program includes: Discussions of Garden Spells, which will be held in Barnes & Noble stores across the country. Author appearances. Meet Sarah Addison Allen at Barnes & Noble. Visit www.bn.com/recommends for information on Allen’s in-store events. An online book club. Join Sarah Addison Allen in our online book club. Discuss Garden Spells with the author and other readers. Log on to www.bn.com/bookclubs throughout September. A free guide. Ask any Barnes & Noble bookseller for a copy of our free guide to starting your own reading group. The guide can also be found online at www.bn.com/recommends. Selections for Barnes & Noble Recommends are chosen by a group of the company’s booksellers from across the country. Each selection is a book that Barnes & Noble recommends unconditionally, believes is "unputdownable” and especially appropriate for book discussion groups. The first Barnes & Noble Recommends selection was Diane Setterfield’s debut novel, The Thirteenth Tale (Atria Books), a suspenseful tale of a bookseller’s daughter hired to write the true story of a famous author with a mysterious past. The second selection was Chris Bohjalian’s The Double Bind (Shaye Areheart Books), a novel combining the compelling pace of a thriller with the emotional depths of the most intimate drama as it follows the insidious trail of mental illness. The third Recommends selection was Mohsin Hamid’s The Reluctant Fundamentalist (Harcourt), a spellbinding monologue that dramatizes the turmoil and terror of today’s world in a singular, thought-provoking voice. The fourth and most recent selection was Paulette Jiles’ Stormy Weather (William Morrow), an unforgettable family drama of hardship, sacrifice, and strength in a tragic time. Each of these novels, including Garden Spells, qualify as riveting reads, books of exceptional quality worthy of stimulating discussion. About Barnes & Noble, Inc. Barnes & Noble, Inc. (NYSE: BKS), the world’s largest bookseller and a Fortune 500 company, operates 792 bookstores in 50 states. For the fourth year in a row, the company is the nation’s top bookseller brand, as determined by a brand’s overall strength based on its combination of familiarity, quality and purchase intent, according to the EquiTrend® Brand Study by Harris Interactive®. Barnes & Noble conducts its online business through Barnes & Noble.com (www.bn.com), one of the Web’s largest e-commerce sites. General information on Barnes & Noble, Inc. can be obtained via the Internet by visiting the company's corporate Web site: http://www.barnesandnobleinc.com.