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Critics' Opinion:
Readers' Opinion:
First Published:
Oct 2017, 384 pages
Paperback:
Jun 2018, 400 pages
Book Reviewed by:
Michelle Anya Anjirbag
Buy This Book
An instant New York Times bestseller and Reese Witherspoon Book Club pick from beloved author Alice Hoffman—the spellbinding prequel to Practical Magic.
Find your magic.
For the Owens family, love is a curse that began in 1620, when Maria Owens was charged with witchery for loving the wrong man.
Hundreds of years later, in New York City at the cusp of the sixties, when the whole world is about to change, Susanna Owens knows that her three children are dangerously unique. Difficult Franny, with skin as pale as milk and blood red hair, shy and beautiful Jet, who can read other people's thoughts, and charismatic Vincent, who began looking for trouble on the day he could walk.
From the start Susanna sets down rules for her children: No walking in the moonlight, no red shoes, no wearing black, no cats, no crows, no candles, no books about magic. And most importantly, never, ever, fall in love. But when her children visit their Aunt Isabelle, in the small Massachusetts town where the Owens family has been blamed for everything that has ever gone wrong, they uncover family secrets and begin to understand the truth of who they are. Yet, the children cannot escape love even if they try, just as they cannot escape the pains of the human heart. The two beautiful sisters will grow up to be the memorable aunts in Practical Magic, while Vincent, their beloved brother, will leave an unexpected legacy.
Alice Hoffman delivers "fairy-tale promise with real-life struggle" (The New York Times Book Review) in a story how the only remedy for being human is to be true to yourself. Thrilling and exquisite, real and fantastical, The Rules of Magic is "irresistible…the kind of book you race through, then pause at the last forty pages, savoring your final moments with the characters" (USA TODAY, 4/4 stars).
Excerpt
The Rules of Magic
Once upon a time, before the whole world changed, it was possible to run away from home, disguise who you were, and fit into polite society. The children's mother had done exactly that. Susanna was one of the Boston Owenses, a family so old that the General Society of Mayflower Descendants and the Daughters of the American Revolution were unable to deny them admission to their exclusive organizations, despite the fact that they would have liked to close the door to them, locking it twice. Their original ancestor, Maria Owens, who had arrived in America in 1680, remained a mystery, even to her own family. No one knew who had fathered her child or could fathom how she came to build such a fine house when she was a woman alone with no apparent means of support. The lineage of those who followed Maria was equally dubious. Husbands disappeared without a trace. Daughters begat daughters. Children ran off and were never seen again.
In every generation there ...
Alice Hoffman's Rules of Magic is the long-awaited prequel to one of her most cherished novels, Practical Magic (1995). With the return of Bridget and Franny, Hoffman proves again that the true magic of her work is not the sorcery itself, but the relationships between families, siblings, and the rest of the people that she brings to her readers. Emotionally wrenching without becoming trite, Hoffman explores love and loss in a way that few others have come close to mastering...continued
Full Review
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(Reviewed by Michelle Anya Anjirbag).
Jodi Picoult, New York Times-bestselling author of Small Great Things and Leaving Time
Reading an Alice Hoffman book is like falling into a deep dream where senses are heightened and love reigns supreme. The Rules of Magic is no exception—as I tumbled into the story of three siblings desperate for and cursed by love, I never wanted to awaken.
Whether talking about Rules of Magic or its predecessor, Practical Magic, Hoffman always makes one thing clear about the Owens sisters – there is something different about them. The town is not quite sure whether to revile or fear them, but that never stops the community from turning to the Owens' unorthodox problem-solving methods if they have a need. The Owens women have special knowledge and power, something that simultaneously isolates them and gives them prestige. In short, they are witches; figures that constantly appear in many magical tales, fairy tales, and bits of folklore all over the world, often as old women who are meant to be feared.
Hoffman isn't the first writer to draw on the play between witches, wise ...
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