BKMT READING GUIDES
The Secret Ingredient of Wishes: A Novel
by Susan Bishop Crispell
Hardcover : 304 pages
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26-year-old Rachel Monroe has spent her whole life trying to keep a very unusual secret: she can make wishes come true. And sometimes the consequences are disastrous. So when Rachel accidentally grants an outlandish wish for the first time in years, she decides it’s time to leave her ...
Introduction
26-year-old Rachel Monroe has spent her whole life trying to keep a very unusual secret: she can make wishes come true. And sometimes the consequences are disastrous. So when Rachel accidentally grants an outlandish wish for the first time in years, she decides it’s time to leave her hometown?and her past?behind for good.
Rachel isn’t on the road long before she runs out of gas in a town that’s not on her map: Nowhere, North Carolina?also known as the town of “Lost and Found.” In Nowhere, Rachel is taken in by a spit-fire old woman, Catch, who possesses a strange gift of her own: she can bind secrets by baking them into pies. Rachel also meets Catch’s neighbor, Ashe, a Southern gentleman with a complicated past, who makes her want to believe in happily-ever-after for the first time in her life.
As she settles into the small town, Rachel hopes her own secrets will stay hidden, but wishes start piling up everywhere Rachel goes. When the consequences threaten to ruin everything she’s begun to build in Nowhere, Rachel must come to terms with who she is and what she can do, or risk losing the people she’s starting to love?and her chance at happiness?all over again.
Excerpt
Chapter 1Birthday parties made her nervous. Itchy. She didn’t mind the screaming kids, puddles of melted ice cream or even the clowns who twisted dogs out of skinny, colored balloons.
It was the birthday candles—and subsequent wishes—that did it.
Wishes had a funny way of coming true around Rachel Monroe. Whether she wanted them to or not.
Too bad that excuse didn’t fly with four year olds. So there she sat, sideways in a plastic booth, next to a pile of discarded plates and crumpled, pizza-sauced napkins, flicking her gaze to anything in the cramped party room but the source of her discomfort. ...

Discussion Questions
1. Is it always a good thing to have your wishes granted?2. Sweets like chocolate and pie have been used in fiction as a vehicle for magic--why do you think food has this appeal and what food would you choose to have magical qualities?
3. What is the significance of Nowhere, NC the town of "lost and found"?
4. What responsibility does Rachel have to her friends and neighbors?
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