โ Scribed by Hoffman, Alice
No coin nor oath required. For personal study only.
The Owens sisters confront the challenges of life and love in this bewitching novel from the New York Times bestselling author of The Rules of Magic and The World That We Knew.
For more than two hundred years, the Owens women have been blamed for everything that has gone wrong in their Massachusetts town. Gillian and Sally have endured that fate as well: as children, the sisters were forever outsiders, taunted, talked about, pointed at. Their elderly aunts almost seemed to encourage the whispers of witchery, with their musty house and their exotic concoctions and their crowd of black cats. But all Gillian and Sally wanted was to escape. One will do so by marrying, the other by running away. But the bonds they share will bring them backalmost as if by magic...
Splendid... Practical Magic is one of [Hoffman's] best novels, showing on every page her gift for touching ordinary life as if with a wand, to reveal how extraordinary life really is. Newsweek
[A] delicious fantasy of witchcraft and love in a world where gardens smell of lemon verbena and happy endings are possible. *Cosmopolitan*****
**
For most adults, fairy tales are among the childish things we've put away. Alice Hoffman, however, feels differently. Practical Magic starts out as a tale of Gillian and Sally Owens, two orphaned girls whose aunts are witches--of a mild sort. For the past two centuries, Owens women have been blamed for all that has gone wrong in their Massachusetts town, ever since their ancestor arrived, rich, independent, and soon accused of theft: "And then one day, a farmer winged a crow in his cornfield, a creature who'd been stealing from him shamelessly for months. When Maria Owens appeared the very next morning with her arm in a sling and her white hand wound up in a white bandage, people felt certain they knew the reason why." The aunts are daily ostracized by the same upstanding citizens who sneak to their house at night for magical love cures. To the sisters they are for the most part benevolently absent, though their bell, book, and candle routine makes life a torment for Gillian, beautiful and blonde and lazy, and Sally, who's all too responsible. But when one of the aunts' cures works too well, ending as a curse, the dangers of real love become all too clear. In Hoffman's world being bewitched, bothered, and bewildered is no mere metaphor--and neither is desire. The elbows of one enamored man pucker a linoleum counter, another walks around with singed cuffs. It's difficult to catch the author's power in brief quotes. She needs space and increment to build her exquisite variations of vision and reality, her matter-of-fact announcements of the preternatural. Practical Magic again and again makes one recall the thrill of hearing at bedtime, "Now will I a tale unfold..." --Kerry Fried
Her 11th novel is Hoffman's best since Illumination Night. Again a scrim of magic lies gently over her fictional world, in which lilacs bloom riotously in July, a lovesick boy's elbows sizzle on a diner countertop and a toad expectorates a silver ring. The real and the magical worlds are almost seamlessly mixed here, the humor is sharper than in previous books, the characters' eccentricities grow credibly out of their past experiences and the poignant lessons they learn reverberate against the reader's heartstrings, stroked by Hoffman's lyrical prose. The Owens women have been witches for several generations. Orphaned Sally and Gillian Owens, raised by their spinster aunts in a spooky old house, grow up observing desperate women buying love potions in the kitchen and vow never to commit their hearts to passion. Fate, of course, intervenes. Steady, conscientious Sally marries, has two daughters and is widowed early. Impulsive, seductive Gillian goes through three divorces before she arrives at Sally's house with a dead body in her car. Meanwhile, Sally's daughters, replicas of their mother and their aunt, experience their own sexual awakenings. The inevitability of love and the torment and bliss of men and women gripped by desire is Hoffman's theme here, and she plays those variations with a new emphasis on sex scenes?there's plenty of steamy detail and a pervasive use of the f-word. The dialogue is always on target, particularly the squabbling between siblings, and, as usual, weather plays a portentous role. Readers will relish this magical tale. BOMC main selection.
ES Index : 1
ABC : 1
Number of Words in Auth: 2
Formats : EPUB
Number of Formats : 1
Has Cover : Yes
All Identifiers : amazon:B001R11CJO, goodreads:22896, isbn:9780425190371
Test Text Series Index: Magic
Single Author : Alice Hoffman
Original Source : New_Files_Xon-main_10_08_PM
Sorted Author by LN, FN: Hoffman, Alice
Title Length : 015
Title Parm D : Practical Magic
Title Parm F : Practical Magic
Title Parm A : Practical Magic
Title Parm B : (
ES Lib Name : NIRC 2019-10
Record ID : 4916
Template Work Area : Magic
ES Name : Practical Magic
Uncomma Author : Alice Hoffman
Num of Aut : 1
๐ SIMILAR VOLUMES
****"[A] delicious fantasy of witchcraft and love in a world where gardens smell of lemon verbena and happy endings are possible." --_Cosmopolitan_** The Owens sisters confront the challenges of life and love in this bewitching novel from _New York Times_ bestselling author Alice Hoffman.** For
From the *New York Times* best-selling author of *The Dovekeepers*... For more than two hundred years, the Owens women had been blamed for everything that went wrong in their Massachusetts town. And Gillian and Sally endured that fate as well; as children, the sisters were outsiders. Their elde
### Amazon.com Review For most adults, fairy tales are among the childish things we've put away. Alice Hoffman, however, feels differently. *Practical Magic* starts out as a tale of Gillian and Sally Owens, two orphaned girls whose aunts are witches--of a mild sort. For the past two centuries, Owen
**The beloved classic novel, the basis of the classic film starring Nicole Kidman and Sandra Bullock.** As children, **sisters Gillian and Sally** were forever outsiders in their small New England town, teased, taunted and shunned for the air of magic that seems to sparkle in the air around them.
For more than two hundred years, the Owens women have been blamed for everything that went wrong in their Massachusetts town. Gillian and Sally endured that fate: As children, the sisters were forever outsiders, taunted, talked about, pointed at. Their elderly aunts almost seemed to encourage the wh
For more than two hundred years, the Owens women have been blamed for everything that went wrong in their Massachusetts town. Gillian and Sally endured that fate: As children, the sisters were forever outsiders, taunted, talked about, pointed at. Their elderly aunts almost seemed to encourage the wh