Magical Realism

Add just a bit of magic to your everyday life...

The House of the Spirits  by Isabel Allende
Spanning four generations, this magnificent family saga is populated by a memorable, often eccentric cast of characters. Together, men and women, spirits, the forces of nature and of history, converge in an unforgettable, wholly absorbing and brilliantly realised novel that is as richly entertaining as it is a masterpiece of modern literature.

Necklace of Kisses  by Francesca Lia Block
Forty-year-old Weetzie Bat ends her once-passionate relationship with secret agent Max and checks into an enchanted pink hotel, where she meets an otherworldly host of fawns, angels and mermaids.

The Thin Place  by Kathryn Davis
Discovering a dead body at a lake near the Canadian border, 12-year-old Mees Kipp brings the man back to life and realizes that she possesses an extraordinary gift that irrevocably shapes her life, the lives of her two friends and their community.

The Onion Girl  by Charles DeLint
A novel set in the mystical city of Newford tells the hidden story of Jilly Coppercorn, an artist whose magical paintings capture hidden beings that live in the city's shadows and whose fey charm hides a dark secret about her past.

Perpetual Ending  by Kristen Den Hartog
Writing fables along with her illustrator/lover Simon, Jane finds comfort from tragic childhood memories involving her twin sister Eugenie and weaves clues to her secret past within the tales she writes.

Like Water for Chocolate  by Laura Esquivel
A culinary romance set in Mexico. Condemned by tradition to look after her tyrannical mother and remain a spinster, Tita finds her destiny in the kitchens of the family ranch. Her recipes for Mexican dishes are woven into the story of her doomed romance with Pedro, her brother-in-law.

Sarah Canary  by Karen Joy Fowler
"An extraordinarily strong and accomplished first novel" (The New York Times Book Review). In the winter of 1873, a white woman mysteriously appears in a Chinese railway camp. Ordered by his uncle to return her to the white world, Chin Ah Kin embarks on a journey that is both heroic and mystical in its search for right and good.

With  by Donald Harington
After Robin Kerr is abducted from mainstream America, she slowly adapts to her new life in the backwoods of Madewell Mountain with the aid of the pets and the spirit that communicates with her.

The Town That Forgot How to Breathe  by Kenneth J. Harvey
When the maritime village of Bareneed is beset by mythic sea creatures, a bizarre suffocating plague and other strange events, divorced father Joseph Blackwood works against time to save his only daughter. 

Skylight Confessions by Alice Hoffman
Hoffman works with her own private deck of tarot cards to create psychologically rich, mystical tales infused with a sexy form of magic realism sprung from the union of romance and tragedy.

Candles Burning  by Tabitha King
An extraordinary Southern saga begun by Michael McDowell and finished after his death by Tabitha King. In the spirit of ghost stories Michael loved, Ms. King has taken up where he left off, weaving a Southern gothic fabric of murder, guilt, innocence, corruption and survival, in the voices of the living and the dead.

Caramba!  by Nina Marie Martinez
Working at a California cheese factory within sight of the Mexican border, Nat and Sway share confidences at a local club and pursue dreams of saving Sway's father's soul and overcoming a fear of public transportation.

Pomegranate Soup  by Marsha Mehran
Three Iranian sisters – Marjan, Layla and Bahar Aminpour – flee the turmoil of the Islamic Revolution in their native country to seek refuge in Ireland, where they open the exotic Babylon Cafe.

The Bluest Eye  by Toni Morrison
Eleven-year-old Pecola Breedlove, an African-American girl in an America whose love for blonde, blue-eyed children can devastate all others, prays for her eyes to turn blue, so that she will be beautiful, people will notice her, and her world will be different.

The Wind-up Bird Chronicle  by Haruki Murakami
Toru Okada is an apparently happy man – his domestic routine seems familiar and comfortable. Admittedly, he has recently quit his job, the cat has disappeared, and a strange woman has begun to bother him with explicit phone calls. Then one day, his wife does not come home from work.

Mama Day by Gloria Naylor
In a small Georgia town, Mama Day uses her gifts as a seer and healer, but her powers are ultimately tested when her beloved niece's life hangs in the balance.

Wild Animus  by Rich Shapero
Newly graduated from college, Sam Altman is gripped by an inexplicable urge to lose himself in the wilderness and teams up with an enigmatic young woman who seems bent on helping him realize his dreams.

Waiting for June by Joyce Sweeney
In the third trimester of her pregnancy, Florida high school senior Sophie tries to discover the identity of the father she has never known, while adamantly refusing to disclose the name of her own baby's father.