Etta owns a dress shop. Each time a woman puts on a dress from Etta's shop it instills confidence in the woman to follow her dreams. Etta has raised her granddaughter, Cora since she was small. Etta would like nothing better than for Cora to find love. Cora is married to her job and seems oblivious to love.
Walt owns a bookstore and he and Cora have been friends since they were young. Walt has been in love with Cora for a long time.
Things get complicated when Walt, starts to read books on the radio and women all over England fall in love with his voice and write to him, some for advice and some in the hopes of falling in love with Walt. ( )

I wasn't really aware of magical realism as a (sub?) genre before reading Garden Spells (which I loved) and the premise of The Dress Shop of Dreams is not dissimilar to a mystery series I read, so I was intrigued from the moment I saw it. Obsidian Blue rated it highly and that was all I needed to buy it myself.

Cora has entombed herself in her science lab, devoting herself to continuing her parents' research and goal of "saving the world" after they are killed in a house fire when she's just a child. Her grandmother Etta is a dressmaker with some serious witch in her stitch: her dresses and her alterations give back the wearer whatever it is they are missing in life. Etta decides Cora is missing her heart, and takes steps to help her find it again with rather unforeseen consequences.

This book isn't just the story of Cora: there are a lot of people, all linked one way or the other, in search of pretty much the same thing. The story is told in third person present tense, alternating among all the players, which felt awkward for me at first, but I found the groove quickly enough.

Generally, I liked the book a lot. I thought it was well-written and I was really interested in each of the characters. Some of the outcomes were predictable (most of them...ok, all of them) but I didn't read the book for suspense. There is a mystery involved in the plot, but thankfully it's not the true focus of the book (mystery readers are not going to be stumped by whodunnit). I loved the dress shop and the bookshop. I loved how the dress shop changed colours on its own in time with the seasons, and played music to suit the person shopping. I liked Etta a lot.

Most of all, I'm thoroughly interested in reading more by this author. I don't know if I'll go with The House at the End of Hope Street or wait until her next book comes out (mentioned in the back of this book, but I'm at work and can't remember the name of it), but I'm definitely reading more of her work. ( )

Loved it! Reminded me of the subtle, everyday magic in Sarah Addison Allen's books. ( )

I am not going to lie. I was initially hesitant to start this book because I was worried that the character of Cora's investigation of her parents deaths was going to turn this book into a hybrid of magical realism/mystery thriller. I do think at times the book got pretty close to that edge, but the magical realism angle pulled through and in the end I found this book to be a really great read.

There are a myriad of characters in this book but I promise you that you can follow each character and their individual plot lines. Besides Cora an her grandmother Etta, you have several other characters.

Walt, the owner of a bookstore that Cora frequents and her childhood best friend.

Dylan, who works as a producer on a radio show.

Milly Bradley, who is still recovering from the loss of her husband ten years after he has passed away.

Detective Henry Dixon who is still trying to put his life back together after his wife left him.

I would also say that the shop itself is its own character, changing the silk on the walls depending on the season, just knowing what music to play for when a woman or a man enters the doors. I loved everything about the shop and just wished a place like this really did exist.

I think that if you are a book lover you are really going to love this book. Besides the dress shop, Walt's bookstore plays an important part in this story, along with several books that come into play.

I also like that though Etta does have the power to provide each woman that walks into her shop a way to realize her dreams, she has a blind spot when it comes to herself.

The writing to me at times was lyrical and evoked different emotions and feelings in me as I read it. This really did remind me of the best of Alice Hoffman and Sarah Addison Allen's books. I still re-read Alice Hoffman's The Red Garden every year because that book just makes me feel awe, sadness, hope, love, everything all at once when you start reading the tales that make up the story of the fictional town of Blackwell, Massachusetts.

I can say that I have become a fan of magical realism books and books like these have become one of my favorite genres to read. I plan on going back and trying to read Menna va Praag's older books.

I read the synopsis of The House at the End of Hope Street and promptly bought that book.

For those that are interested here it is:

When Alba Ashby, the youngest Ph.D. student at Cambridge University, suffers the Worst Event of Her Life, she finds herself at the door of 11 Hope Street. There, a beautiful older woman named Peggy invites Alba to stay on the house’s unusual conditions: she’ll have ninety-nine nights, and no more, to turn her life around.

Once inside, Alba discovers that 11 Hope Street is no ordinary house. Past residents include Virginia Woolf, Dorothy Parker, and Agatha Christie, who all stayed there at hopeless times in their lives and who still hang around—quite literally—in talking portraits on the walls. With their help Alba begins to piece her life back together and embarks on a journey that may save her life. ( )

Started out slow and I almost put it down because it wasn't holding my attention well. Picked up the pace in fairly far-fetched fashion, but ultimately entertaining. ( )