From beloved author Alice Hoffman comes the spellbinding prequel to her bestseller, Practical Magic.Find your magic.For the Owens family, love is a curse that began in 1620, when Maria Owens was charged with witchery for loving the wrong man.Hundreds of years later, in New York City at the cusp of the sixties, when the whole world is about to change, Susanna Owens knows that her three children are dangerously unique. Difficult Franny, with skin as pale as milk and blood red hair, shy and beautiful Jet, who can read other people's thoughts, and charismatic Vincent, who began looking for trouble on the day he could walk.From the start Susanna sets down rules for her children: No walking in the moonlight, no red shoes, no wearing black, no cats, no crows, no candles, no books about magic. And most importantly, never, ever, fall in love. But when her children visit their β¦
From beloved author Alice Hoffman comes the spellbinding prequel to her bestseller, Practical Magic.Find your magic.For the Owens family, love is a curse that began in 1620, when Maria Owens was charged with witchery for loving the wrong man.Hundreds of years later, in New York City at the cusp of the sixties, when the whole world is about to change, Susanna Owens knows that her three children are dangerously unique. Difficult Franny, with skin as pale as milk and blood red hair, shy and beautiful Jet, who can read other people's thoughts, and charismatic Vincent, who began looking for trouble on the day he could walk.From the start Susanna sets down rules for her children: No walking in the moonlight, no red shoes, no wearing black, no cats, no crows, no candles, no books about magic. And most importantly, never, ever, fall in love. But when her children visit their Aunt Isabelle, in the small Massachusetts town where the Owens family has been blamed for everything that has ever gone wrong, they uncover family secrets and begin to understand the truth of who they are. Back in New York City each begins a risky journey as they try to escape the family curse.The Owens children cannot escape love even if they try, just as they cannot escape the pains of the human heart. The two beautiful sisters will grow up to be the revered, and sometimes feared, aunts in Practical Magic, while Vincent, their beloved brother, will leave an unexpected legacy. Thrilling and exquisite, real and fantastical, The Rules of Magic is a story about the power of love reminding us that the only remedy for being human is to be true to yourself.
This was my first Alice Hoffman read, and I was pleased. It's quite an entertaining story, and I will certainly pick up the rest of the series! It's the type of fantasy I enjoy.
A question: Just wondering: did the cab driver also die in the accident? His fate wasn't mentioned, and that bothers me. And--I'll be looking foward to see if Vincent gets to see his sisters again, in the later books.
I want to fall all over myself over this book, like most of the rest of you. I truly do.
I loved the Practical Magic movie (who didn't??). More recently, I loved the book, too, and felt like it was pitch perfect.
And the recent Faery Magazine homage to Alice Hoffman, Witches, and this forthcoming book was SO incredibly rich and juicy, I could hardly wait to reserve it for immediate delivery upon publication.
So..?? Well, it was a real tour de force of all things 1960s. Nice flavor and background. Loads of quickie magical tips and herbalism sprinkled throughout. Interesting characters.. but.
I don't know. Ultimately I really had trouble, it seems, connecting to the protagonists. I liked the supporting characters. I liked Isabelle the best.
But Franny and Jet? There was just something flat about them. After a while, their angst just grew tiresome. And Vincent? He seemed β¦
I want to fall all over myself over this book, like most of the rest of you. I truly do.
I loved the Practical Magic movie (who didn't??). More recently, I loved the book, too, and felt like it was pitch perfect.
And the recent Faery Magazine homage to Alice Hoffman, Witches, and this forthcoming book was SO incredibly rich and juicy, I could hardly wait to reserve it for immediate delivery upon publication.
So..?? Well, it was a real tour de force of all things 1960s. Nice flavor and background. Loads of quickie magical tips and herbalism sprinkled throughout. Interesting characters.. but.
I don't know. Ultimately I really had trouble, it seems, connecting to the protagonists. I liked the supporting characters. I liked Isabelle the best.
But Franny and Jet? There was just something flat about them. After a while, their angst just grew tiresome. And Vincent? He seemed forced and untrue.
And dammit, Ms. Hoffman. Cancer seems to haunt your books; in some it is so insistent that I have had to discontinue reading. I managed to get through this one, since it was not central.
But dammit. Having had more than my share of cancer in my life, I, for one, cannot bear it in my books for pleasure. But that wasn't the cause of my disappointment.
Ms. Hoffman is a master of setting; of evoking a sense of the time and place, and peripheral details of the story.
Still, I cannot join the raves, even though I was sure I would. I had fully expected to.
Maybe my hopes and expectations were unrealistic.
But for me, the magic just never really showed up, or when it ever so slightly peeked through, it mostly just seemed sad.