Magic Lessons
Alice Hoffman
Simon & Schuster
Alice Hoffman takes readers all the way back to the beginning of the story behind Practical Magic in her new novel, Magic Lessons.
Practical Magic was a 1998 blockbuster movie starring Sandra Bullock and Nicole Kidman, based on the 1995 book of the same name by Hoffman. In Practical Magic, two modern day sisters with special powers try to fight a family curse that says any man they love will die. The family curse, they’re told, originated with their long-ago relation Maria Owens, who was arrested for witchcraft and cursed her lover and all of the future lovers of her female descendants.
Magic Lessons tells readers Maria’s story, starting in 1664 in England and continuing to North America and eventually Salem, Massachusetts, with a stop in Curacao in the Caribbean.
Hoffman is a masterful storyteller in any genre, but when it comes to witchcraft she rules the page. Her witches are always powerful, but also always practical, helping women with natural potions, growing herbal gardens and curing the sick. Maria is no different and in Magic Lessons, readers also meet her mother and her daughter, both of whom are also gifted witches, in their own special ways.
There are plenty of Magic Lessons in this novel, mostly practical and mostly still true today:
· Always love someone who will love you back.
· What you give will be returned to you threefold.
· Do as you will, but harm no one.
· Fate is what you make of it. You can make the best of it, or you can let it make the best of you.
Now that’s practical magic.
Hoffman, who lives near Boston, has written more than 30 books of fiction. I recommend you check out any and all of them. I’ve read most of them and loved them all. My favourites are The Red Garden – a sweeping family saga that spans more than 300 years written in 2011 – and Blue Diary – another family story about lies and hidden pasts that was written in 2001. The Dovekeepers, also written in 2011, gets honourable mention for its treatment of the siege of Masada 2000 years ago, as told from the women’s perspective.
Most recently, she wrote The World That We Knew, a haunting story of the Second World War that mixes magical realism into a heartbreaking story. Magic Lessons is an entertaining read by an incredibly gifted author.
To make sure you never miss one of Tracy’s book reviews, subscribe below.
Comments