Lost Lake by Sarah Addison Allen

I recently finished Sarah Addison Allen’s latest book, Lost Lake. It did not disappoint. It had all of the elements that make her stories both lovely and magical.

It’s about a young woman who after a loss takes her daughter to visit her great-aunt whom she hasn’t seen in quite some time. While visiting her great-aunt she meets some interesting characters and memories from her childhood resurface leading her on a new adventure.

Now that was a very vague description because I’m always afraid I’m going to give away too much, but what I really want to talk about is a unique reoccurring thing in all of Sarah Addison Allen’s books. In every single one of her stories most of the characters are self-employed. They own sandwich shops, sporting goods stores, catering companies etc. I don’t know if that is intentional but I really like that element. It allows their jobs to be flexible around the story. So instead of a character working as a marketing executive for a big company and waiting for 5pm so that they can go out and continue their adventure they can get up in the middle of the day and keep the story rolling on. I don’t know why I notice things like that but it just jumped out at me.