Mia Jacob has grown up in the “Community” a sort of cult run by her “father” Joel Davis. Mia’s mom ended up marrying Joel when she left home has a pregnant teen with no options. Life in the Community is restricting and Mia longs for the other side, especially when her mother shows her how to sneak off to the library since books are banned by the Community. But when tragedy strikes, Mia finds she needs to escape before the Community destroys her. Nathaniel Hawthorne’s novel, The Scarlet Letter might be just the book that saves her life.

Like many of Hoffman’s novels, this one also has a bit of magical realism in it. I devoured the first half and found the second half a bit slower but the ending was just right. I love the strong theme about women’s bodily autonomy and women’s rights in general, that runs through this novel.

Thank you to Netgalley and Atria Books for an advanced readers copy of this novel. This was released last week on 8/15/23.

This one stayed with me long after finishing. It is a deeply profound and beautiful book commenting human nature and the power of reading. It also explores the connection between writer and their subject, their muses, and most importantly their audience.

This book remind us that art can save our life. In tough times, there may not be people around us who understand, but we can find connection in books, music, and all art forms. And through those connections we can also find strong bonds with their creator. True art withstands the test of time and so do their creators. Our main character Mia, learns this from her favorite book & an author that she loves before meeting.

I enjoyed the magical realism of this book and the light thriller aspect that ensued around Mia's past life.

Worth the read and something to think about!

8-16-23 The Invisible Hour by Alice Hoffman
This was my first book by Alice Hoffman, but she has been on my TBR for a while. It was recommended by Anne Bogel of the Modern Mrs. Darcy book club and What Should I Read Next. I value her recommendations highly. All the titles under the category “The Power of the Written Word were 5 star reads for me and those are very rare.
Ivy leaves her parent’s home an unsupported and unwed pregnant teenager. She is take into a strict and cultish ‘community. The leader sets all the rules which include no books and no raising your own children. Ivy, her daughter Mia, and Nathaniel Hawthorne, the author of The Scarlet Letter, learn that the world can be a place of love and acceptance through the power of the written world. With a large dose of magical realism and some difficult topics, this book was a great read. I’ll be reading more of Alice Hoffman’s titles.
Thanks so much for the DRC and the opportunity to read and review The Invisible Hour by Alice Hoffman.
5 stars, published August 15, 2023
#NetGalley, #Atria, #AliceHoffman, #AnneBogel

I enjoyed this book and I could not put it down. I really enjoyed the characters and the writing was really well done. It made you want to keep reading.

Storyline and delivery were solid, and I enjoyed the characters. The overall storyline felt like it stretched my suspension of disbelief a little bit, but the overall feel of the book was inspiring. Definitely worth reading, especially if you love Nathaniel Hawthorne.

𝙏𝙖𝙠𝙚 𝙤𝙣𝙚 𝙧𝙞𝙨𝙠 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙮𝙤𝙪’𝙡𝙡 𝙨𝙤𝙤𝙣 𝙩𝙖𝙠𝙚 𝙢𝙤𝙧𝙚. 𝙄𝙩’𝙨 𝙖𝙣 𝙖𝙙𝙙𝙞𝙘𝙩𝙞𝙤𝙣 𝙤𝙧 𝙞𝙩’𝙨 𝙗𝙧𝙖𝙫𝙚𝙧𝙮, 𝙞𝙩’𝙨 𝙛𝙤𝙤𝙡𝙞𝙨𝙝𝙣𝙚𝙨𝙨 𝙤𝙧 𝙞𝙩’𝙨 𝙙𝙚𝙨𝙥𝙚𝙧𝙖𝙩𝙞𝙤𝙣.

This is a novel about the magic of books, but it is also a tale of the many traps in a woman’s life, and the courage it takes to escape them. This novel is sister to 𝑇ℎ𝑒 𝑆𝑐𝑎𝑟𝑙𝑒𝑡 𝐿𝑒𝑡𝑡𝑒𝑟 𝑏𝑦 𝑁𝑎𝑡ℎ𝑎𝑛𝑖𝑒𝑙 𝐻𝑎𝑤𝑡ℎ𝑜𝑟𝑛𝑒, in a sense, and a love letter to him. Mia Jacobs grows up in a commune, curious by nature, hungry to fly away and see what is outside her narrow world. Her mother Ivy came from Boston, had lived her life on Beacon Hill born to privilege, she did as she pleased and didn’t follow the rules. Ivy was different, and different wasn’t welcome in a place where order is demanded. When she gets herself ‘in trouble’, she is heartbroken, desperate and alone. Her parents won’t stand for the shame their beautiful, unmanageable daughter has created and Ivy takes her future into her own hands, packs a suitcase and makes her escape. She finds refuge in rural Massachusetts’s on a run-down farm in a ‘cultish community’ cut off from the rest of the world. Joel Davis, head of the commune, takes her as his own, marrying Ivy. She has traded one set of chains for another, but it is all for her daughter, Mia.

Growing up Ivy had devoured books, from fairy tales to the classics, but reading isn’t allowed in the Community. There is much work to be done, no time for wasting and breaking rules leaves you branded with a letter of your sin that you wear around your neck. She tries to reckon with their restrictive beliefs, reasoning that it makes sense to keep one’s head out of the clouds on a farm. Ivy loves her daughter more than anything, hating that all the children belong to everyone there, but this is meant to be her safety, there isn’t anywhere else to go. As Mia grows up, she feels the stain of the outsider on her skin, just like her mother. Despite Ivy trying to fit in, she is accused always of setting herself apart. Mia, at fifteen, struggles with obeying the rules. One day her mother allows her to go into the library when they are in town, but it’s their secret. It is like an enchantment, her love for books, magic! Possibilities open, as does the future. Maybe her mother doesn’t know everything, maybe the Community is wrong about keeping the rest of the world locked out. From that day forward, she sneaks to the library and reads anything she can get her hands on, dreaming of escape. As it’s said, books are dangerous, they teach a person to think.

Being a dutiful girl doesn’t seem so appealing to Mia, what she absorbs in her reading makes her question Joel’s philosophy. She takes more risks, pushing beyond the confines of her life, as her mother Ivy once had. Mia knows nothing of her mother’s past only that she lived West of the Moon, and it haunts her to think that her mother shrinks herself to fit into the Community. How different would she be if she never chose this life? Mia dreams of another future for herself too, maybe they could run away together? One day a forbidden book is discovered in the barn, and punishment follows, but something worse is on the horizon.

As Mia’s life crumbles, she finds solace in the book, 𝑇ℎ𝑒 𝑆𝑐𝑎𝑟𝑙𝑒𝑡 𝐿𝑒𝑡𝑡𝑒𝑟 𝑏𝑦 𝑁𝑎𝑡ℎ𝑎𝑛𝑖𝑒𝑙 𝐻𝑎𝑤𝑡ℎ𝑜𝑟𝑛𝑒, a story that mirrors her world and explores the weight of freedom. She does as she is told, for a time, while planning her escape. When she heads out into the world, she learns more about her mother, and how much they were the same. Magic awaits her, and the dangers of freedom. Through her love affair with Hawthorne’s words, she will discover time is fluid, and choices are often a gamble with fate. There isn’t a time when women didn’t have to fight for their power, weren’t beaten into submission, shamed for their intelligence or differences. Mia, just like her mother Ivy, wants to walk her own path, but Joel won’t release his grip and his reach is further than Mia knows. How could a writer, long dead, save her life? There is power in telling stories, a melding of hearts and minds, sometimes fiction is real.

I am a huge fan of Alice Hoffman and enjoy being enchanted by the stories she spins. This is a sad novel but light is infused throughout. Thinking of the traps desperation often leads people into, the way the world punished women in the past, and even today, is dark. Someone always wants to be in power, lording it over the rest of us, don’t they? It’s why utopia is a fantasy. This is extreme but many mother/daughter stories echo Mia and Ivy, how much mothers sell of themselves to give their child better, hoping that happiness isn’t make believe, that their girl can dodge the control and judgement they couldn’t. Books truly are a special magic too, they can be medicine, friend, a guide, a key… There truly is a bond between the author and readers, just knowing someone gets it, someone out there feels your pain, fiction or not or can paint a picture of paradise in your head, an escape from the mundane is glorious. I also enjoyed Nathanial’s part in the tale, it was bittersweet. Yes, read it while we await her next novel.

Published August 15, 2023

Atria Books

I wanted to like this book so much, but I was wary from the get go when the description talks about falling in love with Nathaniel Hawthorne... and I had a right to be nervous.

The beginning of this book was so good! Learning about Ivy and how she came to join the cult and how all of it affected the formative years of Mia's life was so interesting and I wanted more. I loved learning about her adoptive mothers and how they were able to keep her safe from being tracked down (which seemed a bit unbelievable to me that a man who's not even blood-related to her and is in charge of a cult would have time to hunt down a girl he calls his daughter).

The book could have ended with the funeral, or had Mia go back in time but show that it was actually all just a dream. Instead... Hoffman made it so cringey that it felt like a completely different book.

You're telling me that this book changed her life so much that she fell in love with Nathaniel Hawthorne in modern times while he had been dead for 200 years?? And that when she went back in time that he would immediately fall in love with her too? AND (spoilers) THAT HE WOULD IMPREGNATE HER? SO NOW SHE'S PREGNANT WITH A BABY WHO'S FATHER WILL HAVE TECHNICALLY DIED 200 YEARS BEFORE SHE AND HER MOTHER EVER EXISTED??

It was TOO unbelievable that I was laughing out loud at it all. The first half of the book would get a 4/5 from me, but the second half tanked the rating. Still not the worst book I've read, but far from the best.

I started this on a whim when scrolling through NetGalley books on my Kindle, but I ended up reading the entire thing in less than 24 hours. This was my first Alice Hoffman novel, and while I love her writing style, I was a bit confused when I was suddenly on a time travel journey halfway through! 😂 Although this type of thing is usually not my jam, it did end up sort of working. I’d definitely be curious to read more Hoffman, though I do feel like the first 50% of this novel was WAY better than the second half. The book almost seemed to lose steam & sputter out, which was disappointing given the strong start.

"Real life is unbelievable. Souls are snatched away from us, flesh and blood turn to dust, people you love betray you, men go to war over nothing. It’s all preposterous. That’s why we have novels. To make sense of things."

I opened The Invisible Hour not quite knowing what to expect. The premise intrigued me, as did the rumors about magic that surrounded talk of the plot and book itself. And honestly, how could a book written by Alice Hoffman not have any magic in it?

As a whole, The Invisible Hour is a story about the power of books, motherhood, family, relationships and at it's core, the magic of those things as well as the magic of hope. The journey of Ivy's life prior to finding and joining the cult, and the flipside of Mia's journey outside of the cult are almost parallel - one ending with the same hope and magic that the other began with.

The fantasy element of this novel was an interesting twist, but I'm not sure that it worked for me personally. I would have preferred to have that cut out, and to just have followed Ivy as she left the cult, and found herself and who she wanted to be outside of all of that. I wanted more of her journey with Sarah and Constance, I wanted the "magic" of being transported to another time and place while you read to... not have been real magic. I think it would have been more powerful to have it be more rooted in reality (though I am normally quite a fan of magical realism.) Having that take place just felt too forced. A little too unrealistic to still have the 'realism' part of magical realism attached.

Overall, The Invisible Hour is a powerful story, and worth picking up for a read during the autumn season.

"In books, no one helped a girl who didn't help herself and every fairy tale ended with the same lessons. Trick your enemy, do what you must, believe in enchantments, save yourself."

The Invisible Hour was published August 15, 2023. Thank you to Atria Books, NetGalley and the author for the digital advanced copy. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

I am a fan of Alice Hoffman. I can't believe what people will put up with in communes. I am surprised the mother stayed there with her daughter. I admired the daughter rebelling against all those constraints.

I was touched and swept away by Alice Hoffman’s new book, The Invisible Hour. A cross between historical fiction, romance, and magical realism, the story spans over two distinct time periods in a poignant story about love, loss, and the importance of books.

Hoffman never fails to add a bit of magic into all of her books, and The Invisible Hour is no different. If you loved her classic Practical Magic, you will love Mia’s story as well.

Thank you to NetGalley and Atria Books for the advanced copy in exchange for my honest review. The Invisible Hour is out now!

3.75 Stars
"A book doesn't live when it's written. It lives when it's read."
Can describe this as The Great Alone + Dictionary of Lost Words vibes + a dash of magical realism.

Likes:
- Alice Hoffman's writing style makes me want to read her other books!
- Speaking of, so many good quotes
- All the cult stuff was terrifyingly fascinating and had me intrigued
- Relationship between the female characters

Dislikes:
- Time jumps felt disjointed
- The pacing was off. Felt that it focused too much on some parts and not enough room for the others

This is a love letter to books. When a very young Ivy falls pregnant, she leaves home and winds up living with a cult and married to its leader. Her daughter, Mia, has never known a world outside the cult. Still, she questions everything and has an innate curiosity that leads her to sneak into the town library. The books there take her to different worlds with new ideas. One, in particular, The Scarlet Letter, saves Mia's life. Mia takes it with her when she runs from the cult's compound.

I loved the fighter that Mia was. Her strength and brilliance made me fall in love with her. The descriptions that Hoffman writes about the world surrounding Mia are beautifully all-encompassing. I felt like I had escaped with Mia and learned new things with her while appreciating the beauty that is part of both new and old. Her love for nature. Her enjoyment of the outdoors. Her passion for words. The setting is phenomenal.

And then Hoffman takes us back in time when Mia travels to the 19th century to meet Nathanial Hawthorne himself. A love affair begins and has Mia questioning her role in Hawthorne's life and how it affects his role in hers. I enjoyed getting to explore Hawthorne's world in this way. Hoffman always does such a wonderful job of merging the historical and fictional in a seamless way. This book is magical and is one that any lover of literature would enjoy. I could not put it down and recommend this one to any fan of Hoffman's. You will not be disappointed.

Receiving a brand-new Alice Hoffman book fills me with anticipation of delight. There is no one else whose language is so unique to her that you know within the first few sentences whose prose it is. Reading The Invisible Hour provided me with a weekend of enjoyment, my head buried in this novel. Hoffman never disappoints.

There is no witch, no magic here (except for Hoffman's) yet you are immediately drawn into Alice Hoffman's world. Here, the apples planted by Johnny Appleseed are known as Look-No-Further, there are gardens that contain only red flowers, the tree that blooms in winter are all part of her magic.

Ivy is a 17-year-old high school girl, pregnant by her boyfriend. Said boyfriend wants nothing more to do with her. =. Her parents, shocked and horrified, plan to send her away to a place where she can give birth and have her baby adopted. Ivy wants to keep her baby and so runs away to a commune in an apple orchard, run by an autocratic leader. Here she gives birth to Mia, whose story this really is.

I couldn't help, throughout, feeling that the Supreme Court decision to overturn Roe vs. Wade inspired Hoffman's need to write about what happens when women can't be responsible for their own bodies. It's a theme that is repeated again and again. (Maybe too often?) The commune is a Puritan-like cult where children are not allowed to read, grow up in Kibbutz-type nurseries, wear plain clothes and possess. nothing of their own. Those who break the rules have their hair shorn or are branded with the letter of their misdeed.

The center of this novel is Nathaniel Hawthorne's Scarlet Letter and how it came to be written. Hawthorne, and time travel, are both to be found here. But given that this is Alice Hoffman writing, be assured that you will willingly suspend disbelief and dive in, as you might into the Last Look River (which also features in the book.) If you've read this author before, then you know that every book she writes is magical in her own way. This one is no exception.

I can't thank Atria Books enough for the chance to read and review and ARC copy of this book.

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/5586649150

Thank you for the opportunity to read this!
My favorite so far for 2023!!
I’ll be purchasing a copy for my shelf!

**Many thanks to NetGalley, Atria, and Alice Hoffman for a DRC of this book in exchange for an honest review!**

A high-concept journey of magical realism in the literary sphere that got MORE than a bit lost in translation...

Ivy has always been a bit of a rebel, a free spirit, and most of all, a lover of books. Her cold and judgmental parents have no room for anything they deem a transgression, however, so when Ivy ends up pregnant as a teenager, they send her away. Ivy ends up as a member of a harsh and oppressive cult, led by the unyielding Joel Davis, who has no problem shaming women and even branding them when they behave outside the norm.

When Ivy's daughter Mia comes of age, she has inherited her mother's love for the written word and her rebellious nature and dreams of freedom. When she picks up Nathanial Hawthorne's book The Scarlet Letter, it seems as though every page is written just for her. In its pages, another young woman is persecuted for her transgressions, including her penchant for books. Mia longs for life outside her Community and wishes for some way --- ANY way --- to be free.

Then suddenly...she gets her wish.

Mia is transported back in time, and comes face to face with none other than the man of her proverbial dreams: Nathanial Hawthorne himself. As she has come to learn with the help of a few librarians over time, books can take you anywhere...but is Mia able to stay in this fantasy? When the line between dream and reality begins to blur entirely, will the truth she finds be enough to make up for the terrible tragedies and pain she has encountered thus far? Could a book TRULY be enough to save her very life?

Hoffman is one of those writers I've been meaning to get to for AGES, and the premise sounded so fascinating that I couldn't resist to pick this up. I read the Scarlet Letter in high school and remember being enough of a fan that I could understand Mia's adulation for Hawthorne in this book, and I put my usual reservations about cult books aside long enough to try to dive into this story without hesitation. And it worked...for a while. The beginning of the narrative, about Ivy's backstory and early years in the cult (prior to Mia's teen years) were dark, dramatic, and engaging. I felt sorry for the situation Ivy endured, and got emotionally invested in pretty short order.

But once Mia took over...things started to descend into muddled and messy territory, and the wheels sort of came off the wagon.

I get that Mia was supposed to be enraptured by Hawthorne...but I don't understand exactly WHY he was so taken with her. The romance part of the book felt so forced, and longer than it needed to be. There were even portions told from Hawthorne's POV, but it felt more like Hoffman was determined to sprinkle in all of her research rather than create her version of Hawthorne as a fully fleshed out person. On top of this, Hoffman wrote this as sort of a 'love letter' to libraries and librarians, which in theory is a beautiful idea...but having this sort of juxtaposed against the love story between Mia and Nathan just sort of muddled the overall message.

There have been many instances where I've struggled with magical realism, but in this one I think so much of the magic felt like it just sort of happened randomly, without provocation, that it lost the 'realism.' Hoffman spends SO much of this book telling rather than showing, and this also bothered me. Gentle and thoughtful lines of prose were broken up by expository passages that just sort of moved the plot along, often without thorough explanation. The timeline sort of moves around, the focus moves around...and for several reasons, Ivy's voice (the driving force behind the opening narrative) gets lost entirely. Instead of a now and then that felt so close in time, I think it would have been fascinating to have Mia's perspective take place during modern times, and CLEARLY during modern times. There often felt like there wasn't enough separation or clarity about what year we were in at any given moment and this book sorely needed it.

While I hoped to feel moved, enchanted, and captivated by Hoffman's brand of magic, I think in this case I would have settled for something a bit more, well, "Practical." 😉

3.5 stars

This is my first Alice Hoffman book, even though I’ve had them sitting on my shelves for years. I had no idea what to expect going into this book, and did not read the blurb. To start the author’s letter is incredibly touching.
The story of Mia and Ivy is a tale that can be told a million times over in a thousand different iterations- A mother unable to make her own choices, a daughter looking for freedom from oppression, and the men in their lives that let them down in various ways. What stuck out to me most was the beautiful prose. Apparently I’m a sucker for it. But it also went beyond because I live in New England and know the exact places described, which gave it a touch of the personal and made it feel like reading about HOME.
Throughout the book there are constant mentions of the important of libraries and books in shaping our lives and our ideas. Some of the lines so poignant if I had a physical book this would be tabbed to the nines.
In addition, the constant mentions of women and their fight for the rights to their own bodies and their own lives is heavy, and transcendent. Nathaniel’s sister discussing issues that still plague women today. The mention of the hill with the rue, the “Hill of Death, others call it Salvation Point.” and the meaning this has still today was incredibly striking.
My only negative opinion is that I wish the past and present parts had been intermixed a little better. It felt disjointed switching so completely. But I did not have issues following the story, it just took me out of the narrative a bit.
As a whole this novel was a love letter to books and libraries, and as a self proclaimed book nerd, I have to repeat one of my favorite lines in the whole story. “She thought about the day that she’d believed would be her last day on earth. How lucky she’d been to have walked into a library.”

Thank you netgalley for the earc. My opinions are my own.

Thank you to NetGalley for an advanced digital copy of this book.

Let me start by saying that Alice Hoffman KNOWS how to tell a story!! And what a story this is. I have no idea how to classify this book. It is a tragedy, historical fiction, time travel, fantasy, social commentary. But what it really is, is a great read!!

Twenty or so years ago, Ivy was a rebellious teenager. She didn't like rules and she didn't see why she had to follow any. Sneaking around with a college freshman leaves her pregnant, and the boy has no intention of helping her with her problem. Her father slaps her and calls her names when she tells him and offers only abortion to solve the problem. So Ivy runs away. But the spoiled girl has no idea how to survive and finds herself on a bus headed to a commune where life will be "perfect". When Mia is born, Ivy has realized what a mistake she made, but has no way out. The man who took her in, promising to love and care for her, now threatens that if she ever leaves, he will keep the baby. So she stays. But Mia is a lot like her mother and is not happy with all the rules she lives under. When Ivy tragically is killed, Mia regrets not forcing her mother to escape sooner and leaves to find her own way.

But then she reads The Scarlet Letter, which seems to echo her mother's life, and she falls in love with the author, Nathaniel Hawthorne, believing him to be the man she wants and needs to love. Mia is rescued and follows her dream of being a librarian, surrounded by the books she believes saved her life. But the man who calls himself her father will not let her go and she goes to extremes to rid herself of him once and for all.

Loved the scarlet letter tie in! Hester was one of my favs earlier this year and I craved more from that storyline. This is perfect for people who love spooky season reading - has it all!

Thank you for letting me read this book! I adore all of the stories by Alice Hoffman!
I adore these characters and I love any story that has a strong women with books and stories.
This was a heartbreaking story, but a lovely one and I rooted for allll of the characters. I love how this story pulls you in and makes you fall in love with them. This was a fantastic story, and I am so glad I was able to read it while on vacation and able to escape into this lovely plot.