Magic Lessons by by Alice Hoffman

Magic Lessons unveils the centuries-old curse that has followed the Owens family in Practical Magic and The Rules of Magic. I started to read Practical Magic but didn’t get a chance to finish it before it disappeared from Overdrive. It is on it’s way to my mailbox now. What I did read, I thought it was more whimsical and magical then Magic Lessons. I read The Rules of Magic in our Traveling Sister Goodreads group, and all of us loved it. It created an exciting discussion, and I am sure Magic Lessons would as well and be an excellent choice for a group discussion.

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Brenda’s review

The Owen family’s story starts with Maria Owens, and in Magic Lessons, we learn her story. It is a story of powerful and strong women at a time when women were powerless and were treated as less or evil, dangerous and needed to be grounded by men. The Owens women here are not grounded by the cruelty of men. At first, we see their vulnerabilities as they follow their hearts and through the lessons they learn and their drive to reach their goals and overcome their conflicts, we see them developed and grow into the women they become. Alice Hoffman creates some magic here with the lesson she provides us here in this unforgettable insightful story.

“Maria understood that a woman with her own beliefs who refuses to bow to those she believes to be wrong can be considered dangerous.”

I loved the magic and witchcraft here that Alice Hoffman blended so well with the history of the story. I loved the lessons learned here about love, life and kindness. I loved the love that flowed as easily as the words did in the story. It was entertaining, exciting, insight and thought-provoking while portraying women well. I highly recommend for better reading.

“Know that love is the only answer.” “Always love someone who will love you back.”

I received a copy from the publisher on NetGalley!

Brenda’s Traveling Sisters review for The Rules of Magic

The Rules of Magic is a spellbinding, heartfelt and heartbreaking, insightful, sad and beautiful story that was so full of emotion for all of us that read this in our Traveling Sisters Goodreads group.  The story started off a little rocky for some of us at first as we were getting to know the Owens siblings.  A lot was being told to us all at once but once we let that go and felt the magic within the storyline we were able to escape into this magical world of love, courage and a family curse. For the rest of the sisters they were enchanted right from the start with this magically written story.

Alice Hoffman does a fantastic job here creating unique, quirky characters each of them with some danger to them. The tension builds as each deals with their own personal conflict and we loved their bond and support they had for each other. We all loved the animals in this story that made such wonderful characters themselves with their bonded relationship with one of the siblings.

We all felt a strong message throughout this story of love more, not less in so many different ways and that brought out such a wonderful discussion amongst each other. We dug deep into Hoffman’s insightful words and shared with each other the messages we each got from the stories allowing us to look at it differently had we read it on our own.  We savored our discussion reading experience as we talked about the joy, love, loss, sorrow, acceptance, courage and support we felt within this wonderful story.  We will be thinking of this discussion and this story for awhile.  We highly recommend for group reads!

Book, IPad, Kindle sleeves and book markers can be found in Norma and our Mom’s  Etsy shop use SISTERS20 at the checkout for 20% off.