Magic Lessons

Maria has built a beautiful house in Salem near the shore of a beautiful lake.  Her life is full with her children, her love, and her library in the old jail building.  Lots of women come to her for advice and help with their troubles.  But it hasn’t always been this way.  Salem has just left a dark era full of lies and trials of the women the townspeople think suspicious…and Maria Owens is a witch.

Magic Lessons is the chronological first book in Alice Hoffman’s Practical Magic series.  With this novel, Hoffman introduces readers to the matriarch of the beloved Owens family and her tragic story that led to our favorite sisters in that same home centuries later.  This book is about acting with good intentions and the beauty of having people of different backgrounds and beliefs around us.  Hoffman weaves magical realism and romance into this story, developing a stunning origin tale for so many of the things we love about Practical Magic.

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I give Magic Lessons 4 out of 5 stars.  This book was slow in places, but I was drawn in throughout.  I am a huge fan of Hoffman’s work – the magic, the characters, the dialogue.  The storyline of Maria working to outlaw the witch trials felt forced and not as authentic as the rest of the book.  I always appreciate her use of historical figures to bolster the story and bring it more life.  However, I noticed a slight error in the timeline I wasn’t expecting – a certain character could not have been present for one of the conversations at that geographic spot.  I enjoyed this novel, but, overall, this just wasn’t a book I would shout from the rooftops or tell everyone about.

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If you appreciate Hoffman’s other works like Practical Magic or The Invisible Hour, I think you’ll like this book, too!   Also, if you are looking for a historical fiction book about the Salem Witch Trials, this book would fit that bill.  With some references to death and violence, this book may be best directed to audiences over 13.

I chose Magic Lessons for the Friends and Fiction Book Club’s October prompt “a bewitching book”.  This book is full of magic or folklore remedies I would love to dig in to more!  I read Practical Magic last year for Halloween and wanted to complete the series.  This year, I am starting with Magic Lessons, and am moving to The Rules of Magic for Halloween, then finishing with The Book of Magic.  Have you read the full series before?  I’d love to hear your thoughts!

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What I’m Reading

• Current print book: Island of Blue Dolphins, Scott O’Dell
• Current audio book: Lawrence in Arabia, Scott Anderson
• Book I’m most looking forward to: Nights in Rodanthe, Nicholas Sparks