Masterful storytelling yet again as Alice Hoffman picks the reader up and lets them hover in the life of a disjointed American family.

Alice Hoffman used to be a favorite of mine, but a while ago she seemed to stop taking any kind of risks with her writing. This early novel shows some of the promise that would lead to her bigger successes, but also shows her tendency to rely on a kind of lazy magical realism that becomes tiresome very quickly.

Alice Hoffman never fails to mesmerize me with her talent of simple yet beautiful way of writing. I was a little torn while reading White Horses. When I first started it I barely realized how much time had flown by and was shocked to see I was halfway through the book when I did "resurface" I couldn't quite pin how I felt about the story so far. The characters are so well portrayed I felt like I KNEW them. I could feel that faint undertow of darkness in all of them. I almost felt dirty without really know why! You know that feeling? Kind of like EWWWWW but you cannot be assure of what you are thinking is true!

There is no disputing the writing is on point and that Alice Hoffman can reel you in before you even know what hit you. What hers especially good is that she makes stay even if you are quite sure you want to.

Teresa's love for the story given to her by her mother has her longing for an Arias. Arias were wild men who rode their white horses out into the desert and steal the hearts of women. Teresa's mother, Dina was given this story to her by her father. While her mother tells her of the Arias, she dreams of them when she falls into her mysterious sleeping fits. She will sleep and no one can wait her -- not even the doctors can discover the reason she sleeps these long periods of time. She finds Silver to be an Arias for her. They sleep together. As her family changes starting with her father leaving and not coming back, then her oldest brother leaves home and finally her mother has a male friends. Teresa only finds dark places and unnatural relationships perhaps due to her love for Silver.

This was a difficult book for me to read. It is not a happy story to read. You watch a family while reading, seeing the family fall apart. There is tragedy in this novel. In some ways I found it to be a beautiful novel but also a disturbing story.

White Horses by Alice Hoffman is an amazing novel. The book is well written and the story kept me involved to the end. After I finished the book I continued to think about the main characters and care about what happened to them.

I guess this is a re-release from this author. It deals with some taboo subject matter, so be warned. There is minimal magic, mostly it is the girl's mother who weaves the tales that our main character spends the rest of the story trying to escape.

I guess you could say this is a coming of age story about Teresa. It starts off with her as a little girl, just before puberty. I found it interesting that none of the normal hormonal drama took center stage as she grew up. She is very much a bystander in her life. She just goes where it takes her and doesn't take much into her own hands.

As a little girl, so gets a sleeping sickness which she blames for her inactivity. But more and more often, people do tell her she needs to take charge of that as well. All you can do is be carried along with her, rooting for her to get out of the mire of her life.

This was my first Alice Hoffman book, although I’ve been aware of her for years, and I came away from reading it with mixed emotions. The writing is lovely, lyrical at times. The characters weren’t particularly likable, fortunately I’m not a person who requires that in a standalone book. I wouldn’t call it an enjoyable read (the themes are rather dark), yet there was something compelling about it that kept me reading. Themes like the damage parents can unwittingly do to their children, and how do those children rise above that damage, are always interesting. But there’s a definite “ick” factor involved in one of the main threads of the book, and in the end that colored my overall view of it. I did enjoy the writing though, and without the ick factor I would’ve given it an additional star. It definitely left me interested in reading more of Alice Hoffman’s books.

The hours I spent reading this is time I want back. What a terrible read. I stuck with it thinking it would take a turn and become something worthwhile but it never did. Ms. Hoffman has been my favorite adult fiction author and I know her books are sometimes dark which is usually fine. But this one (now incest is cool?) is just a big letdown. Where is the magic? I didn't care about any of the characters and that left me cold.

This is one of Alice Hoffman's earlier books originally published in 1999. It's amazing when you read a book like this you miss modern technology. Cell phones are such an important part of our lives today you want Teresa to get in touch with the people around her. She had an unusual childhood and as she struggles to grow into a responsible adult she has to deal with the past and the stories her father used to tell her. I found myself losing interest as I got into this book. I enjoyed Ms. Hoffman's book, Faithful, much more than this one.

I enjoyed this book, just like all of the other Alice Hoffman books! I expected it to be more of a "fairy tale" and was pleased that it was not! Good story, good characters!

This book was a little too far-fetched for me. Although the writing was good, the story just didn't keep me interested. It had many elements that I like in the book; dreamscapes, fantasy, nightmares, and a dark quality. Somehow, it just didn't fit together well.

This book, published in 1982, is being reissued this year. The Connor family, composed of King Connor, his wife Dina, the two sons Silver and Ruben and their young daughter, Teresa. Connor and Dina had married against her affluent parents wishes. Connor worked in construction while Dina kept house in San Rosa, California, far from New Mexico where Dina's family lived.

Eventually King and Dina's marriage broke up and King moved out. Ruben, the older son followed his father to Los Angeles. Silver remained home with the reclusive Dina and Teresa. Then Bergen, a private detective, showed up. He had been hired 20 years before by Dina's late father to find her. Bergen eventually fell in love with Dina, who many years younger. Teresa had developed a mystery illness that forced her to sleep for long stretches. In an effort to calm Teresa, Dina told her mythical stories about Arias, handsome cowboys who roamed the dessert on their fast horses.

Silver, the handsome son, was pursued by many young girls but eventually married Lee when she was 4 months pregnant. He also began to work as a drug dealer to support his family in San Francisco. Silver and Teresa shared a close bond that eventually led to incest. Silver's marriage was not a happy one and became troubled after Dina died and Teresa moved in with the couple. Needless to say, this caused much conflict in Silver's marriage

There were many unexplained details like Teresa's mystery illness that doctors could not diagnose and the unnamed cancer that consumed Dina. Hoffman introduced some of the magical elements that permeate her later books This is not one of Hoffman's best works. However when an author has a string of popular books, their publishers will try to cash in by reissuing some of their first works.

As a fan of Alice Hoffman I was excited to receive a galley copy of White Horses. While the story was haunting the subject matter was just too much to get past. There is no romanticism to incest. A beautifully written book but a badly chosen topic for the plot with no resolution other than incest victims treated like lovers who are choosing their futures like lovers would. A no go for me.

“There were other times when she stayed awake nearly till morning, convinced that if she were quiet enough, if she waited long enough, the night would reveal itself to her in a slow stream of syllables shaped by its wings; a song only she could understand.”

Well, this is a very good example of how even pretty good writing alone doesn’t make a good book.

Actual rating of 2.5 stars.

Dina, of Santa Fe, spends almost all of her life looking out of windows and waiting for a mystical cowboy - decorated in turquoise and riding a white horse - to sweep her off her feet and lead her to a life of love, adventure, and mystery. Since was a little girl, she listened to her father tell her stories of Arias: lone, shadowy riders of the full moon, and ever since then, Dina waits for one to find her. Becoming impatient, she runs off with a scoundrel of a man, King Connors, and follows him to California to start a new life. We follow the story of her their children, Reuben, Theresa, and Dina's favorite, Silver – who she believes is one of her beloved Arias. Passing the story on to a naïve Theresa, she, too, is convinced that Arias are real, and believes her brother to be one of these fictional, dark men. She, too, spends her youth longing and looking for love in the wrong places – but she in her older brother, Silver. (Yes...she is in love with her brother, and he with her - I will address that.)

While the characters may have been mostly three-dimensional, I just didn’t care about them. I didn’t care what happened to them. (SPOILER!) At one point, I was crossing my fingers that Angel Gregory would just kill Silver. But that was an empty plot arc. It built up and led to nothing. Could we have at least gotten a shootout?! (end spoiler) Less than halfway through I was pretty frustrated with all of them. Dina was the only one who redeemed herself, but it was way too late for it to make any difference. I can't tell you why, despite that being what a reviewer is supposed to do. Something was just off. Maybe it was a chemistry issue. But I don't think I am alone here.

Theresa is a great example of someone who loved to play the victim, to be the princess waiting to be rescued. “She came to believe that she was destined to be whatever was expected of her, and in time she went out with any boy who asked her,” Hoffman writes. She only dated other boys, and then men, to repress memories of her and her brother together, because even as a child, she knew it was wrong. Still, it takes her over a decade to realize that Silver is a fucking asshole. I mean, I understand that she has no education past high school, and that her mother basically brainwashed her with fairy tales, but I got pretty sick of Theresa really quickly.

So, no, the incest didn't bother me. Yeah, it's weird. But, hey love is love. I'm not one to judge. My first kiss was with a boy who I thought was my cousin. (He wasn't - I was about six.) But what was happening between Theresa and her brother Silver wasn't love. It didn't feel like real love at all; it felt more like some sort of combination of illusion and desperation.

It didn’t matter to me how attractive Silver was supposed to be. Usually, he is exactly my type: tall, dark, handsome, and a complete narcissistic asshole. Maybe I’m coming to a point in my life where I am through with that type of man. Because I wasn’t buying it here. His charms faded after the first chapter or so.

“The odor of roses was so strong it made him dizzy.” And yeah, let’s talk about the roses. When Theresa falls under one of her "sleeping spells"(which I didn't bother to mention because I failed to see how they even added to the story), she sends out a strong odor of roses. It literally made me nauseous. I never really liked roses, but I don’t think I will ever be able to smell them again without thinking about this mess of a book. I guess it was supposed to be enchanting or add to the thinly spread, magical aspect of the novel, but that, too, failed.

The writing itself, context removed, was the only redeeming quality which saved me from giving this novel less than 2.5 stars. Let’s see for a minute here...

"A man who traveled beneath an orange moon on nights that were scented with wildflowers and thick with heat suddenly seemed much less marvelous than a man who would sit on the back porch and hold her hand for hours without having to say one word."

Like, damn. That’s good. That is one of those rare moments in prose where you have to put down the book, take a deep breath, and read the passage again, letting it soak into your soul. Except, it’s ironic, because the only man in this bloody book who fits that latter description (Bergen) was an absolutely useless character, and didn’t really do anything to help anyone. Ugh.

Although I was vastly underwhelmed and disappointed in my first Alice Hoffman novel, I will certainly give her another chance. After all, Practical Magic is one of my favorite films of all time.

I’ll leave you with this, which was my favorite line, and I think something that everybody needs to hear:

"It's no good to need someone more than you want them.”

If that reminder is all I take with me from this novel, so be it. It's better than nothing.

An early Alice Hoffman - and a good one. The story centers around Silver and Teresa Connor, siblings in a very dysfunctional family, who have an incestuous relationship that overshadows their entire lives. The book made me feel really sad for Teresa who had a fantasy that her brother was an "Aria" - a wild, romantic cowboy type her mother had always described to her. Her bother was truly a messed up drug dealer. I didn't really have a favorite character, except maybe Bergen, who seemed more normal than anyone else in the book. A good read, but certainly not my favorite Alice Hoffman book.

Thanks to Alice Hoffman and Open Road Integrated Media through Netgalley for the advance copy in exchange for an honest review.

I absolutely love Alice Hoffman, and was so excited to be able to read White Horses. It’s written so beautifully, so like Alice Hoffman, however the subject matter may be taboo for some readers. The love that Teresa and her brother Silver have towards each other, can push away some readers, but Hoffman’s writing style is flawless.

I was not able to finish this book as I couldn't continue to read as there was the incest. That is just not something I can sit and read about and enjoy.

This book will take some time to digest. It’s called a book hangover. For some reason when I first glanced at the description, I took it as a fantasy story where the main character was chasing her brother, Silver through her dreams. I was wrong and I was right. I probably wouldn’t have picked it up if I had known it was about a small town, dysfunctional family. I don’t read books like that. Real life is depressing enough. Half way through, I very nearly gave it up.

I am so glad I didn’t. There are many themes in the book, love versus passion, fantasy versus reality, overcoming grief, growth. At what point is a person too old for fairy tales? Is giving up those fairy tales the same as losing hope? Or is it only a matter of finding something better? Something more meaningful? It’s a lot to take in. It’s a lot to think about. I still don’t know how I feel about it.

It’s been said in every other review, but I suppose I’ll say it again. Alice Hoffman’s writing is beautiful, lyrical, poetic. Even when dealing with such awful subjects as drugs and incest, she somehow managed to make it beautiful. You could hear the crickets chirping in the moonlight, feel the summer breeze blowing off the river, the chill of early morning fog.

The story is driven relentlessly on by the never-ending drama. Just when you think it can’t get worse for Teresa, just when you think Silver can’t get more awful, just when Dina finds happiness, something happens. It gets worse. The characters fall lower then they ever have before. Unfortunately, Teresa and Dina seem to be the only ones who find redemption, and even then, you could argue that Dina never found it. She was better in the end, but not as good as she could have been. Not enough to pull her children back from the edge. It was too little too late. She loved herself more than she loved her children. Going so far as to actually speak out loud or write down which ones were her favorites. Just the same, Dina’s story tore my heart out.

This won’t be a story for everyone, and that’s certainly understandable. If you could appreciate nothing else in the book, it certainly gets you thinking, and sometimes it takes an uncomfortable topic to do so. Those topics abound. Incest is the most prevalent, but drugs, alcoholism, prostitution, and abuse of women are also contained within the pages, and at times were worse than the incest. Still, I think if one can get past the discomfort of it all, this book is well worth reading and pushing through to the end.

I did feel like some story threads were left incomplete. What was the deal with the necklace and Harper? Whatever happened to King Connor and Reuben? What happened to Dina’s mother in New Mexico? These loose threads left me with a sense of unfinished in my mouth, but ultimately it was Teresa’s story and I suppose it ended where it needed to.

Thank you to Open Road Media and Net Galley for providing me with ARC in exchange for an honest review.