I am a huge fan of Practical Magic and getting another book about that world is amazing. It did not disappoint, loved it!

Thank you to NetGalley and Simon & Schuster for my electronic ARC in exchange for my honest review. This book will be published September 8, 2020.

This is my first book by Alice Hoffman, and it’s the prequel to the Practical Magic (1995)and The Rules of Magic (2017) series. It works as a stand-alone book but it also got me excited to read the sequels.

It was fun to get lost in the world of witches, as I haven’t read anything with spells since the Harry Potter series.

This book takes place in the 1600s and crosses 3 generations of women. I especially liked the storyline of mother Maria and daughter Faith.

Original review posted on GoodReads.

I was excited when granted an advanced reader's copy of this lovely story--thank you NetGalley!

I am an avid reader of anything pertaining to witches, and this did not disappoint. The story follows the origin of the Owens women so famously featured in Hoffman's earlier novel Practical Magic and how their family curse came to be. I enjoyed the story and found the ending quite satisfactory. There were moments where I felt the story dragged a bit in the middle, but it quickly picked up near the end. This is definitely a great addition to the shelf of any fan of Alice Hoffman or witchy reads in general!

Another Alice Hoffman great read! She has to be my favorite author & she never disappoints. Her description of chacters are amazing & her storyline is one not to put her book down!
Thank you Ms. Hoffman!

Thank you so much to #NetGalley and Simon Schuster for the ARC in exchange for my honest review.

OOH I love LOVED this book. This book goes back to the beginning of the Owens family and we hear the story of Maria. We even meet Maria's ' "mother" Helen. This is the story of how the curse came to be. If you have thought about reading Practical Magic and Rules of Magic, read them AFTER you read this one.. Its not required though because if even you read them (as I have) its still a great book and to be honest it had me going back to the Practical Magic and Rules and rereading them. This will give you a whole new outlook on the series.
Thank you again so much for the opportunity to read this. I LOVED IT!

There is quite a bit of information packed into this delightful book. It follows Marie Owens life from birth into adulthood. The reader gets a better understanding of why the Owens family is cursed. Marie Owens had a very tragic life full of ups and downs. One can understand why she became so bitter toward men. The characters are relatable and well written. The author obviously did a great deal of research for this book. The timeline works great and the descriptions of Salem and the events that transpire are right on level for that time period.
If you like books with strong female leads, this is your type of book. Marie and her daughter, Faith, remain true to themselves and never back down when facing adversity. Faith is extremely stubborn and did upset me a few times. There is a period of time when Marie and Faith are separated and Faith never seems to get over it, even though they were separated for a good reason.
The author also throws in some interesting information about herbs and teas and what they are used for. It’s like getting a look into Marie’s Grimoire.

Let me begin by saying that I am a huge fan of the Practical Magic movie, but have never read Alice Hoffman's book. People always told me that the movie was better. After reading Magic Lessons, I have a difficult time believing that. Magic Lessons is robust! It's summarized as Maria Owens' story, but in truth there are four women central to this 416-page historical fiction. As a reviewer of an advanced copy, the text isn't officially considered finalized so they aren't supposed to be quoted; however, I love great quotes and do use them from ARCs often. I have a ton of passages highlighted in Magic Lessons and I have to include a few knowing they may not be the actual published words.

Hoffman didn't use traditional chapters in the layout of Magic Lessons. There are multiple parts broken up by section dividers. Within the sections, Hoffman includes Hannah's and Maria's lists of remedies and garden tips. Fans of the Practical Magic movie would have heard such tips as always plant lavender for luck and keep rosemary by your garden gate. It's the last part which the movie and the book get to that makes a heartwarming mention by the end of Magic Lessons: fall in love whenever you can.

It felt slow at times only because this book is just as much two books as one. Maria's daughter Faith gets a substantial story taking up her own share of pages. Faith's story goes from her birth to age sixteen. Maria's story goes from her birth (including her birth mother Rebecca and her adoptive mother Hannah) into adulthood. The story takes place from 1664 - 1696.

It's Hannah's lessons on the Nameless Art (witchcraft) that are key to everything Maria learns. There's plenty of Anglo and North American settings with culturally-specific fairy tale imagery. Maria goes from Essex County in England to the Caribbean to the Massachusetts Bay Colony to New York City (where the Dutch still have the majority of influence). From one Essex County to another (England to Massachusetts), Maria faces constant double-edged swords as all in the Nameless Art do. On one hand, women seek their services; on the other hand, those women belong to religions, families, or strict societies where witches are to be persecuted.

Each character feels genuinely alive with ample time to get to know who they are and what motivations drive them. Rebecca abandoned Maria at birth, but it was probably the right thing to do because Hannah (also a blood lineage witch) was the one to find her. Hannah was far more maternal than Rebecca's selfish ambitions driven by lust. Readers probably won't come out hating or even disliking Rebecca though despite her choices being made by her love of an actor rather than her abusive husband. Rebecca had to do whatever possible to find her own sense of empowerment and ultimately freedom. A child was not something she was willing to take on at the time of Maria's birth given the family circumstances. Maria gets to know her for a while and she learns plenty including how love is the most powerful force.

Love backfires for Hannah too, but it's told in past tense. The love of her life betrayed her and Hannah never loved another person. When she finds this baby in the snow with a witch's mark, her life is as full as she needs it be. Hannah is the ultimate parent in every way. Her love is carried through Maria on the child's unbelievably oppressive quest halfway around the world. It's also mentioned that Hannah's form of green magic which is based on the natural world more than worship of a deity comes from Old Norse tradition and was brought to England.

Maria is the type of character who is different in the way her strength comes out; and her own child Faith is remarkably different from her mother's as well. Examining the trauma of each female character (all witches trying to survive in secret), readers can see how the human body, mind, and environment play parts in choices. Rebecca's answer is to flee. Hannah's is that of a warrior willing to make every sacrifice for the love of her daughter. Maria disobeys those in power over her and learns to be mature in decision-making in adolescence. Faith pretends to obey all her oppressors, but then seeks revenge. Fighting, fleeing, dissociating under duress, and seeking to do harm. Those are ways Hoffman brilliantly shows her skills in character arcs. Readers will undoubtedly wonder who gets redeemed and who doesn't until the end.

Since this is historical fiction, the setting of the Salem Witch Trials plays one of the key parts. John Hathorne, an angry, conservative, Puritan magistrate is one of the book's central male figures. Other known historical figures are mentioned like Increase and Cotton Mather and Governor Phipps. What you need to know about John Hathorne can be summed up in this quote (*may not be the published version):

"Women could destroy men, he was sure of it, as Eve had tempted Adam. This was the reason women were not allowed to speak in church. To merely look up on them could cause vile thoughts, and soon enough such thoughts could become deeds. Hathorne believed that God and his angels moved through the mortal world, but the devil walked among them as well."

The shift in Hathorne from the man Maria met and fell in love with to his true self as a stubborn, self-righteous magistrate in New England is the form of masculinity off-set by the beauty and purity of "bad boys" found in sailors/pirates/importers Samuel Dias and his father Abraham. The Dias men were also forced to leave their home due to religious persecution. Samuel is at least more age appropriate than most of the other relationships mentioned for the Owens women. John Hathorne is thirty-seven when he meets fifteen-year-old Maria.

Without spoiling too much, the animal familiars are characters as fully formed as any human ones. They have journeys and Hoffman includes reminders that a familiar comes to a witch by choice and can leave whenever it wants to. It's not a subservient being as depicted in many stories. The familiar forms a bond with their witch as strong as a best friend, parent, or sibling. Familiars are family. They also have their own agency showing that their loyalty is not unconditional. They try to guide their human companions as best as they can. They try to protect each other as partners.

"For protection against love: black cloth, red thread, clove, blackthorn."

As expected for a book about magic and folklore, there is a ton of symbolism in Hoffman's choices. Blue is the color of protection in her version of magic. Typically today's practicing witches use black for protection, but black is for mourning. Grey is the color of the oppressed who dared not have any personal expression at all. It also represents depression and sadness. Red is downright scandalous among the people in the Massachusetts Bay Colony but it probably wouldn't be noticed as clothing in Curaçao. Red hair was considered a sign of a witch or someone not to be trusted. The witches love to wear their red boots and blue dresses. Candles for love spells -- to bring it or send it away -- are white. Blood magic is a whole different world than sympathetic magic.

"Black magic, red magic, blood magic, love magic. Rebecca divided both the world that she walked through and the world that was unseen into these categories."

I also want to give Hoffman recognition for always including the indigenous origins of spell ingredients, rituals, and methods that go into magic performed by Maria and Faith. The women who are enslaved have their own magic and Hoffman emphasizes that Maria cannot simply lurk and borrow their ways. She has to wait for an invitation and proper lessons from her friend's aunt during her time in Curaçao. Faith ends up with The Book of the Raven written by an enslaved woman from Africa. The book somehow ended up in New York for sale at a market vendor. The desperation of those women called for revenge magic and Faith ends up on that path, the left-hand path as some would call it. The choices in the unseen women of Magic Lessons is relevant today in the Black Lives Matter and other civil rights movements. The target audience of this book might not be women of color, but they have roles to play. In Curaçao, one of the housemaids, Juni, becomes like a sister to Maria. Juni's contract as a black girl is different than Maria's contract of indentured servitude. Using what little privilege Maria has, she leverages it to get Juni's freedom too.

Magic Lessons by Alice Hoffman is the first book in the Practical Magic series that I've read but it won't be the last. As in all of her books Hoffman weaves her own magic- fluid sentences, vivid descriptors and seamless character development. I find myself smiling at the beauty of her writing. We speak the same language but my words never fall into place so eloquently.
This is a genre and an era that I don't typically gravitate to but I was so engrossed that I didn't realize that till after I finished. I'm very happy to have had this opportunity to enjoy Magic Lessons and I thank NetGalley, the author and the publisher.

A masterful blending of history and fiction. This book educates with Hoffman's detailed description of the persecution of witchcraft in Massachusetts and entertains and enthralls with the strength of the woman who worked her magic while preserving herself and her child's lives. A strong underlying love between an unrequited ship's captain and the main character brings the story from sadness and loss to a truly deserved happy ending.

I have looked forward to reading this book for months and finally found the time this past weekend - which did NOT disappoint. The build up only made the book that much more exciting to read! There is something exciting and alluring reading about this portion of history!

I appreciate NetGalley for giving me the opportunity to read Magic Lessons by Alice Hoffman in exchange for an honest review. Let me start by saying that I haven't read the other books in the Practical Magic series. You'll learn about Owens family curse that plays prominently in the other books. Maria is left alone in the woods as a baby. She is found by a witch named Hannah, who realizes Maria is a witch like her. Maria's story takes her from England to indentured servitude on the island of Curacao. Maria falls in love with a man who is visiting the island from Salem, Massachusetts and has his baby. She manages to follow him to Salem and finds out he's not the man she thinks he is. Salem in the 1690's is not a good place for a witch to be. This story is about love of family and doing what ever you have to do to protect your family - with some fun magic thrown in. I enjoyed it.

Thanks to netgalley for the ARC.

I was so happy to be back in the world of the Owens women that I probably would have given this at least four stars, regardless of content. As it was, it's a solid 4.5 for me (perhaps because I'm comparing it to The Rules of Magic, which would have been extraordinarily difficult to top). The story of Maria and Faith is, like all of Hoffman's books, full of beauty, joy, sadness, hope. And much like each of the Owens women in Hoffman's prior books, the heroines in this story are proud, strong, stubborn - remarkable each in her own way. The historical elements peppered throughout were interesting, and the book is much richer for the historically accurate world building. Some of the secondary characters, unfortunately, fell flat for me - Ruth, Rebecca, Finney, even ones I wanted to adore like Abraham and Catherine Durant. I felt there was room for more character development, so was disappointed when it was lacking. But, as I said, I'm willing to overlook a lot just to re-immerse myself with the Owens, especially ones as interesting and lovable as Maria and Faith.

This book tells the beginning of the Owen’s witches. The book that started it all. Having read the other two books, I would have liked to have started with this one.

Dark, gritty, angry and witchy as hell, Magic Lessons by Alice Hoffman was a marvelous read! I was entranced from the very first page and am absolutely in love with this tale of love, revenge and seething anger.

'Magic Lessons' takes us through the history of the Owens bloodline, starting from Maria, who is abandoned as a baby and is discovered by Hannah Owens, who is a healer herself. The story continues as Maria passes on her gifts to her daughter Faith. This gorgeously written book is brimming with feminism and bubbling with anger against the wrongs done time and again to women who have minds of their own and determination to carve their own paths and make their own destinies.

The Owens women lived during the time when women could be convicted of being a witch and sentenced to death for practically anything - being able to read and write, not listening to her husband, having a birth mark, or wearing colorful clothes. Hundreds of women were burned or hanged as a part of the witch-trials, and many more perished in the torturous conditions they were kept in. The injustice of it all hit me hard, and I could very well feel the anger of the Owens women. Embittered and betrayed, the Owens women have to learn to steer clear of love and even dabble in dark arts to protect themselves.

The complexities of female relationships a constant theme running through the book. While one would expect women to stand for each other, no matter what, in such a time, the reality was complicated. There were characters such as Hannah and Maria who used their talents to support their sisters, and then there were women such as Rebecca and Martha who mistrusted and manipulated every other woman. Alice Hoffman beautifully represented the presence of both darkness and light, and the eventual triumph of good over evil.

In addition to all the emotion, there is no dearth of magic and witchiness in this marvelous book. There is the good kind, to heal, to bring love, to give courage, and then there is the darker kind, which has bitter consequences. The overall result is a spellbinding tale of magic, love, betrayal, revenge and feminism. Totally worth a perfect five-star rating!

I received this book from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. Maria is a strong woman in the heart of Salem. She knows her powers, but knows.She has to be careful. This book takes you on a fantastical journey. Unputdownable!

Prequels are risky propositions- after all, how exciting can the journey be when you've already arrived at the destination? In the case of Magic Lessons, the task is twice as tricky as the novel is actually a prequel to a prequel. Alice Hoffman first wrote about the Owens women in 1995 with Practical Magic. If you didn't read the novel you probably saw the movie starring Sandra Bullock (Sally Owens) and Nicole Kidman (Gillian Owens)-although the movie had more in common with the campy '60's TV Show Bewitched than any Salem Witch Trial. Twenty two years later Miss Hoffman returned with The Rules of Magic-set several generations before Practical Magic it focused on Franny, Jet, and Vincent Owens. Both books touched on Owens family matriarch Maria and the curse that haunted the Owens women for centuries, but Maria's full story is now told in Magic Lessons. Abandoned as an infant, Maria is taken in by Hannah Owens who teaches Maria about the "Unnamed Arts"-the gift of magic that ultimately causes Maria to be accused of witchcraft and tried in Salem. But Hannah also teaches Maria her most important lesson-only love somone who will love you back. This theory is put to the test when Maria falls in love with John Hathorne. Although Maria believes her future is with John, to John she is just a diversion from his "real" life as a husband and father. After learning all that Maria endures it's easy to understand why she put a spell on herself and a curse on all future Owens women that any man who falls in love with them will die. While Practical Magic was lighthearted and dreamy, Magic Lessons is dark and depressing. As in the earlier books, the women in Magic Lessons are strong and capable, while (most) men are weak and incompetent. Very few could write as beautifully and eloquently as Alice Hoffman does about betrayal, prejudice, and the fear that led to the death of hundreds of women tried as witches. The words flow seemlessly off the pages of Magic Lessons and tear at your heart. There are "potions" for illnesses of the mind and body sprinkled throughout the book that add charm to an otherwise tragic story. Magic Lessons is the perfect beginning and end for Maria Owens. How she learns about the power of love, the unbreakable bonds of family, and the strength to endure the worst of circumstances is her lasting legacy. It's a beautiful story that will stir your soul practically like magic.

Thanks to Net Galley and Simon & Schuster for providing me an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review. This book is simply amazing! I have read most of Alice Hoffman’s books and I am always impressed, but this one was extra special. Her ability to to bring the reader along in the story, visualize the setting and connect with the characters is truly superb. This story is the prequel to Practical Magic and follows the life of Maria Owens, and her daughter Faith, and explains the curse on the men who love an Owens woman. As you read the story you are drawn into the feelings and motivation of all of the women (and men) in the story and it is easy to become emotional at some of the outcome. The magic of her writing really shines in the section about Martha, who covets Maria’s daughter Faith. In a few paragraphs the author is able to convey all of Martha’s feelings along with the life experiences that generates the envy and compels her to take the action she does. It is the understanding of this woman’s motivation that truly draws you into the narrative. I really can say only positive things about this book.

Alice Hoffman is a queen in the world of magical realism, and for good reason. Her ability to deftly insinuate magic into the mundane, allows readers to slide effortlessly into a world where planting lavender for luck and heeding the grave click of a deathwatch beetle is common practice. The Rules of Magic, a prequel of sorts, more of a history really, to her widely acclaimed Practical Magic is a delightful return to the Owens family of women. Centered on Maria Owens, the book follows her winding journey from an orphan in the forests and meadows of England to a woman and mother who does “as she pleases” in 1690’s Salem Massachusetts. Along the way there is danger, love, both false and true, and a trial for both the soul of her daughter as well as the women of Salem.
All in all, Magic Lessons is a true Hoffman piece: magic, love, a red head drawn to mischief, and an ultimate happy ending. The magic, as always, is in the journey.

Lovely prequel for anyone who likes Practical Magic (book or movie). Great character development and historical setting. Romance readers will also be delighted by the read.

Practical Magic is one of my favorite books, a dearly loved comfort read I've reread numerous times. I was less enamored of Hoffman's prequel to that story, The Rules of Magic, and even less taken Magic Lessons. The story of the founding of the Owens family is interesting, but Hoffman's style has changed considerably between the first novel and this one, incorporating more and more elements of historical fiction and less of the fairy-tale style that I believe made Practical Magic so beautiful and deeply resonant. I think there are plenty of readers who will enjoy this expansion on the Owens mythology. I'm simply more in favor of preserving some of the mystery of the earlier characters and moving ahead rather than looking back.