I received this book from the publisher as an Advanced Reader Copy. it is the prequel to Practical Magic, which I loved. I liked this book very much, although it seemed overly long in a few places. I highly recommend it.

This is such a great read. I had tears in my eyes as I finished it. I love Alice Hoffman's books and this is one of her best. I'm always a bit leery of sequels or prequels, but this is even better than Practical Magic! The story of the aunts from Practical Magic, Franny and Jet, and their brother Vincent. Their mother has a list of rules they must obey, such as never wear red shoes, no walking in the moonlight, no wearing black. An dof course the Owens children break those rules, including (despite their efforts) never fall in love. The story progresses so thoughtfully, with characters that are allowed to develop and grow in a way that feels organic to the story. I honestly couldn't put it down. This is definitely going to be a favorite for Hoffman's fans and will win her new ones. Although it's a prequel, it stands on its own - even if I hadn't read Practical Magic I would have enjoyed it. Hoffman has a true gift for mixing fantastical elements into the "real" world, creating something that feels entirely original.

This is the prequel to Alice Hoffman’s novel Practical Magic, which was made into a very popular movie in 1998. As one who had no knowledge of either the novel or the movie prior to reading this book, however, I can attest that The Rules of Magic is a stand-alone story that needs no previous awareness of the Owens family or their house on Magnolia Street in order to be enjoyed.

In true Alice Hoffman style, the characters are engaging individuals who draw you into their unique world, quickly involve you in their lives, and make you want to know that they’re going to be okay. While one can tire of the tales of young people discovering their magical abilities, the Owens girls have always known they were different; witchcraft has been in their bloodline for centuries. They are used to being shunned by neighbors, whispered about in school, and finding themselves so buoyant while swimming that they can’t dive deep to save a loved one in danger of drowning. They do their best to hide their special abilities, whether it’s seeing the future, reading minds, or communing with birds, while trying to fit in with townspeople who simultaneously fear them and seek them out for magical remedies to their problems. They also must face the centuries-old curse that says loving someone means losing that person, sometimes tragically. Dare they love someone if it portends the beloved’s doom?

As a prequel to Practical Magic, this story begins in the 1960s, when sisters Jet and Franny are children living in New York City with their parents and younger brother, Vincent. Vincent — a rare wizard in a long line of witches — has his own approach to dealing with the curse, and the example he sets inspires his sisters to find their own courage. That’s not to say that all will go well, but what is living really about and when is fate just fate and no one’s fault?

Whether or not you knew of Jet and Franny before, The Rules of Magic will make them people you care about as they navigate their way through the complexities of life as Owens girls and as human beings.

Love is not easy. It’s not always sunshine and rainbows. It comes down to very different people relating to one another. Like a conjoined twin, I think fear is a close companion to love. When we are young, we fear that you will never find the right person to love. When we find them, we fear that the other person will not love you back. When we have love, we always fear that this person who has become so vital to your world could be lost. The Rules of Magic is about love. Love between siblings, parents, children, lovers and friends. It is about letting your love flow freely, not bottling it up with fear, guilt, doubt or anger.

I loved this book. I was offered the ARC by the publisher through Netgalley. I vaguely remembered hearing about the first book in the series, Practical Magic, when the movie was released. I think Sandra Bullock was in it? I never got to see it, but ok! Knowing that The Rules of Magic was a prequel to that book I decided to read Practical Magic first. It is not necessary to do that, though I am glad I did. Both books can easily stand on their own. I think if I were to do it again, I would have read this book first and then Practical Magic.

Both books are a slow burn. It took a good 25% before the story really gets into swing. Don’t misunderstand me, it is a good, well written 25%. The methodical layering of personal relationships between the characters and the world they live in takes skill and above all else time.

As the descendants of witches, the Owens family are magical people. I found them fascinating. They know everything about curses and charms. Which herbs will cure fever and which will shake loose an unwanted lover. Black cats are not bad. Witches can’t drown and always carry lavender in your pocket. Even with all their knowledge, some parts of life cannot be tricked, manipulated or avoided.

"Life was short, it was over in an instant, but some things lasted. Hate and love, kindness and cruelty, all lingered and, in their case, all had been passed on."

The Owens family suffers from a curse. Despite the curse, they each must come to learn to:

"Love more, her aunt had said. Not less."

It is a short but sweet thought from a lovely book. It is what we should all strive to do, with or without the help of magic. This book is one I’m going to think about for some time. I will likely revisit it as well. If you have a chance, I highly recommend getting to know this author and her beautiful books. You won’t be sorry

Song for this book: Millstone by Eisley

I really liked it. The Practical Magic is my favourite book, so I want really to read this book.
I find it interesting, and a beutiful and sometimes sad story about the Owens.
You dont need know the Practical Magic, this story is full in itself.

It's FANTASTIC!!!!!

"The Rules of Magic", is such a wonderful world to visit.
Most people avoided the Owens family believing any entanglement with them would taint not only their present but their future as well.
It was said that some family members could place a single horse hair into a pan of water and turn it into a snake.
Yikes... that might scare me away from them too! Ha!

But -- oh how I loved this family who came from a long line of witches as far back as the year 1620 when Maria Owens was charged with witchery for falling in love .... with the wrong man.
The siblings- Franny, Jet, and Vincent are colorful fascinating distinct characters each with special powers - gifts- personality- temperament and charm. Aunt Isabelle is a standout, too. They made me laugh. They made me cry.

From Manhattan to Massachusetts to California--the storytelling is irresistible - filled with magic and imagery -many scents throughout: wildflowers, herbs, eucalyptus, peppermint, trees, patchouli, chocolate, bittersweet scent of almonds, curries, coffee, even bacon.... etc. etc.
Flowers were everywhere at "The Summer of Love" gathering in San Francisco.
You'll even visit the Monterey Pop Festival in 1967..... The grateful dead, Janis Joplin, the who, Jimi Hendrix, and Otis Redding: Music Love Peace

Page after page.... are delightful surprises... gorgeous prose!!!
I devoured this book....taking away wisdom-which brought me back to the 'magic' of our everyday lives. ----- but... I miss these folks, their stories and their rules, already!

Thank You Netgalley, Simon & Schuster, and Alice Hoffman

So rarely does a work of fiction reach out and grab me. Such was the case with the Rules of Magic. A prequel 20 years in the making, Hoffman returns to the legendary Owens family, this time telling the tale of aunts Frannie and Jet....and their little brother, Vincent.

The flowing prose and sweeping scope make the story at once fresh yet familiar, and I was swept into the world of the story from moment one. More than once I had to pause to let story elements was over me. It was the Owens story I never knew I needed and I am so grateful to have read it.

Fans of Alice Hoffman's Practical Magic will be enthralled by The Rules of Magic, the prequel to Hoffman's most popular book. Who would not want to learn the back story of the aunts, Franny and Jet, from Practical Magic? Starting with Maria Owens in 1620, condemned as a witch for loving a married man, the Owens women are not just unlucky in love but actually cursed. To save her descendants from heartbreak, Maria curses Owens women - they must never fall in love as it will prove fatal to the men they love.

Franny and Jet learn this lesson from their mother Susanna who seeks to protect her daughters and her charismatic son Vincent from the Owens legacy by leading ordinary lives, free of magic. But fate is inevitable, and all Susanna's children are magically gifted and unable to avoid love. Tragic events send Franny and Jet back to Aunt Isabelle and the house on Magnolia Street where secrets are revealed and magical lessons learned. Vincent walks his own path, ultimately leaving his sisters a surprising gift that impacts their lives forever.

The real magic here is the spell cast by Alice Hoffman on readers; her mastery of storytelling and evocative imagery allows readers to enter the magical world of the Owens family. Love binds them together just as much as magic, and they learn life lessons from the tragic, romantic and magical aspects of life. To love is to risk losing everything someday, but love is not a curse to be avoided - it is a vital part of life, rife with both happiness and heartbreak. Franny, Jet and Vincent prove to know the rules of magic very well indeed - the magic power of love to heal, to wound, to change life irrevocably, to last beyond death. Fall under the spell of The Rules of Magic - you will gladly give yourself up to the enchantment of this book.

I have no words…. Alice Hoffman took my heart and soul with this book. I am not battling book hangover. I am so happy that I finally got to read the Aunt’s story. I loved the aunts in Practical Magic. They were so much fun to read in that book. While you technically could read this book first I recommend reading Practical Magic first as it sets up the aunts story just a bit more. There is so much character depth here. This book had me crying out of heart ache for the aunts and laughing at their behavior along the way. This book had so much magic and imagery. It was written with beautiful prose. This book is wonderful and I loved the writing. Hopeful and dark, funny and sad, I could not put it down. This book shows us that although we may know the ending to our life, its more about the journey and how we get there. This book will surely be a chart topper. I also hope they turn this one in to a movie as well. I received this book in exchange for my honest review as an invite from the publisher to read on net galley. 5 stars from me.

I'm a huge fan of Practical Magic, both the book and the movie, so I was ecstatic when I discovered there was a prequel! I love that this gave more insight into the early lives of Franny and Jet (and their brother Vincent). The things they went through as children while discovering their powers reveal why they are so cautious with Sally and Gillian, and both Jet and Franny experienced the pain that all Owens women encountered when they loved someone. Getting to learn more about the story of this fun and mysterious family made for an overall excellent read.

A beautiful, romantic prequel to the wonderful Practical Magic. The Rules of Magic tells the story of the aunts from Practical Magic from their childhood to the arrival of two young nieces. Magical and heartbreaking in equal measures, fans of the book and the movie of Practical Magic will not be disappointed.

I would like to thank Simon & Schuster for sending me an advance readers copy of "The Rules of Magic." This is the 26th book I have read by Alice Hoffman, so I guess you could say I am a fan of her writing.

"The Rules of Magic" is the prequel to Hoffman's book "Practical Magic." It tells the story of "The Aunts," Franny and Jet, and their brother Vincent, their early life and coming of age in NYC, and coming to terms with their magical inheritance. Was this magic handed down for many generations in the Owens family a gift or a burden? That question could not be answered -- it simply WAS.
Franny, Jet, and Vincent have always felt that they were different, but full self awareness only came one summer spent at their Aunt Isabel's home in Massachusetts. There, they come to learn that self acceptance was as important as love for a happy and fulfilled existence. For centuries, the Owens women are taught that love is a burden, that falling in love carries deadly risks, but that a life without love is a small death in itself. It takes a lifetime to learn that the only cure for love is to love more.

"The Rules of Magic" is really Franny's story. She is the strongest of the Owens siblings and also the most stubborn, and certainly the most resistant to letting others into her heart. She dubs herself the "woman of thorns" and her heart is impenetrable, except for the love she feels for her two siblings. Even her childhood sweetheart, Haylin, can't break through the walls she puts up. Is it self preservation or self destruction? Or is she really the most loving because she thinks this fortress will protect those she loves most?

But the reader comes to love Franny. And seeing her journey gives you insight into how she became the way she is, and how her legacy being passed on to Sally and Gillian (in Practical Magic) was destiny.

This book was a pleasure to read. No one weaves a tale quite like Alice Hoffman. I can't wait to read my next Hoffman book!

I love Alice Hoffman stories and as always she does not disappoint. She tells a story with a heartfelt theme of family, loss and the ever enduring power of love as one tries to find themselves. Franny, Jet and Vincent have been told all of their lives they are cursed and not to fall in love. They come from a long line of witches and it does not end well if they fall in love due to the family curse but one cannot control who they love and as they try to find themselves in world they must discover on their own they always have each other. When their parents die unexpectedly their whole world changes and they soon realize everything must change. A great read and I would like to thank the Publisher and Net Galley for the chance to read this ARC.

I loved this book. I loved the story. The writing is tight, descriptive and beautifully rendered, in my opinion.
This is a love story. But what makes it extraordinary is that Hoffman describes the pain of growing up and maturing, the heartbreak of loss that every human experiences and the need to keep loving without having to underscore it or rub our face in it.
The story just jumps along page after page never slowing down until we come to the moment when "Practical Magic" starts. I didn't want the story to end so I immediately went on Netflix and watched "Practical Magic". Since it's been almost 20 years since I read the book and first saw the movie, my memory isn't what it should be. However, I think this is the better story.
If you are a fan of Alice Hoffman, you will enjoy this book immensely. If you don't know her work, this is a good place to start. And if you just appreciate a really good story well told, I urge you to read "Rules of Magic"

Fans of Alice Hoffman's brand of magical realism will be thrilled with this prequel to Practical Magic. The backstory of the aunts is wonderful; I also appreciated the visuals of New York/Greenwich in the 60s. This book stands alone; no need to have read Practical Magic to appreciate the story. However, I can't wait to re-read PM now. Alice Hoffman has long topped my list of favorite authors, and The Rules of Magic keeps her firmly in place.

The prequel to one of my favorite Alice Hoffman novels, Practical Magic, THE RULES OF MAGIC takes us back to when the Owen’s siblings, Frances ( Franny), Bridget ( Jet), and Vincent were just beginning their lives.
Raised by parents who never wanted them to know the secret of their magical history, one summer during their teen years a letter from their Aunt Isabelle, an aunt they had no knowledge of, summon them to her ancestral home on Magnolia lane. The trio arrives at the house and their lives are forever changed.

While the curse of Maria Owens looms—always – in the background, the siblings mature, find love and eventual loss ( that damn curse!), and move about their lives in a constant state of towing the line between magic and living normal lives.

The biggest impact on me as a reader was Hoffman’s telling of the story of these three wonderful and tragic figures along the backdrop of the 1960’s and 70’s during the turbulent and militant times of those decades. She interweaves their stories to coincide with the times and as a prequel, it hits every spot of info I wanted to know about after reading Practical Magic.

Here, we’re introduced to the Sally and Gilly’s mom, Regina, and learn how she is related to the family – it’s a great way, BTW, and I was a little shocked when I discovered it.

Tragedy, loneliness, loss, and love are all highlighted into the siblings stories and I wept more than a few times at how their lives were shaped by Maria’s legacy and how it could so easily have been changed.

THE RULES OF MAGIC is one of the few prequel I’ve ever read that is almost as good as the book that came – chronologically – after it. In fact, I venture to say, it is equally as wonderful.

I was given an ARC of this book thru my association with Netgalley for an honest opinion. MY honest opinion is that this book is terrific. 5 well deserved stars.

Totally blown away by this book. Fell in love with all the siblings in the first chapter. It is chock full of magic, humour, sorrow and mostly love. I absolutely loved it.

I am a huge Alice Hoffman fan, but not a fan of magic books. I haven't read Practical Magic and when I first started this book wasn't sure if I was going to like it. But, afterall if was written by Ms. Hoffman who pulls me in every single time with her talent. She did not disappoint with this one either. I found myself unable to put the book down and read it in one day. Thankfully I'm down at the beach and was able to park in a chair for the day.

The Owens sisters and brother Vincent are enchanting and their story will linger with me for a bit as the characters in Hoffman's books generally do. Their tale is quite sad and the curse put upon the family really led to much heartache and worry. Franny, Jet and Vincent leave me wanting more and I will now have to order Practical Magic to continue this saga.

I am not a fan of fantasy or magical tales, but this one is a winner. Pre-order it now!

The Rules of Magic is the prequel to my beloved Practical Magic – one of my very favorite books and movies. I’ve read the book once, but have seen the movie countless times. I’ve always wondered about the aunts – Jet and Franny – and this novel is like a dream come true because we finally get to learn about their lives.

Jet and Franny live with their brother Vincent and their parents in New York City. There are so many rules at home – no red shoes, no night blooming plants – that the trio just don’t understand. As they grow older, they start to realize that they are able to do things that other’s can’t, like turn out the streetlights or make objects move. When Franny gets an invitation from Aunt Isabelle at the family estate in Massachusetts, her parents send her brother and sister as protection. While there, all of the siblings explore love, life, and magic.

But remember that the deathwatch beetle always comes to call for the Owens family and the lives of their loves are cut short. But Aunt Isabelle says that it’s possible to beat the curse, so the Owens children are determined to do find a way.

The story follows the Owens sisters until Sally and Gilly move in with them after their own parents die and the Practical Magic story begins. This is exactly what I needed to read this summer. It’s full of witchy goodness: herbs, spells, gardens, and romance. Fans of Practical Magic have something to look for when this book is released in October, which will be the best time of year to cuddle up with it! Now is the time to pre-order!!

I was a little worried about this prequel because I loved Practical Magic sooo much and didn't want to have my opinion of Franny and Jet altered, but it did not disappoint! Beautiful, magical and emotional, I read it cover to cover in one sitting.