Welcome
"My new novel The Book of Magic, the conclusion of the Practical Magic series, is out on October 12! I'm thrilled to be able to share the final installment with all of you. As we wrap up the Summer of Magic and celebrate the release I invite you to read The Book of Magic this month with me for my bookclub! Join me as I discuss The Book of Magic with incredible people while supporting some of my favorite indie bookstores on my virtual book tour! I will also be going LIVE on Facebook at the end of the month. See you there!"
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October's book club selection is The Book of Magic. I wrote The Book of Magic to celebrate mothers and daughters, sisters and brothers, and anyone who has ever been in love. As I finish up the Summer of Magic I hope this conclusion is a reminder that the only remedy for love is to love more. Hope to see you at the Facebook LIVE Q&A and at my other virtual events!
Facebook LIVE Q&A:
October 27, 2021 @ 5:30pm EST
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The Book of Magic by Alice Hoffman
The Owens family has been cursed in matters of love for over three-hundred years but all of that is about to change. The novel begins in a library, the best place for a story to be conjured, when beloved aunt Jet Owens hears the deathwatch beetle and knows she has only seven days to live. Jet is not the only one in danger—the curse is already at work.
A frantic attempt to save a young man’s life spurs three generations of the Owens women, and one long-lost brother, to use their unusual gifts to break the curse as they travel from Paris to London to the English countryside where their ancestor Maria Owens first practiced the Unnamed Art. The younger generation discovers secrets that have been hidden from them in matters of both magic and love by Sally, their fiercely protective mother. As Kylie Owens uncovers the truth about who she is and what her own dark powers are, her aunt Franny comes to understand that she is ready to sacrifice everything for her family, and Sally Owens realizes that she is willing to give up everything for love.
The Book of Magic is a breathtaking conclusion that celebrates mothers and daughters, sisters and brothers, and anyone who has ever been in love.
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Praise for The Book of Magic on Goodreads
"With The Book of Magic, the fourth book in the magic series, Ms. Hoffman has accomplished what I consider to be an impossible feat. Writing a final installment, that is, in my opinion, better than all prior books in the series."
— Susanne Strong, Goodreads
"This book made me so happy. Author Alice Hoffman has gifted us a wonderful final installment in the Practical Magic series and with the Owens family. The Book of Magic connects the previous books and weaves everything into one final tale that is satisfying, meaningful and let‘s us leave these beloved characters in good hands... Prepare to invest yourself in their world, because this is a gorgeous and substantive book. I am sorry I finished it, but, then again, I didn‘t do anything else for 24 hours. This is a joy."
— Suzanne, Goodreads
"I have always said you can never go wrong with an Alice Hoffman book. The Book of Magic is a work of pure genius. Alice Hoffman evokes pure magic with every stroke of her pen. To say I loved this book does not even come close to how I truly feel about it. You are set loose in the world of the Owens family. Where spells, enchantments, curses, revenge, trust, turmoil, and love is a spinning, tumbling, whirling storm that rains down upon you. You can feel every emotion, all their pain, and the love for each other that bursts from this family."
— Dive Into A Good Book, Goodreads
"Reading an Alice Hoffman book never fails to create a warm, immersive and exciting feeling. This conclusion to the story of the Owens witches pulls you in immediately and wraps up a world tour of family history. All your favorite characters are back, all the famous places are visited and the ending of a generations-long curse gets everyone their happily-ever-after. This one will make a perfect fall read!"
— Alexis, Goodreads
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“I love Alice Hoffman. Full of Hoffman’s bewitching and lucid prose and vivid characters, The Book of Magic is ultimately about the very human magic of family and love and actions that echo through generations. Filled with secrets and splendor and light and dark, the novel works as well as a stand-alone as it does as a conclusion to a mesmerizing series. It casts a spell.” — Matt Haig, New York Times best-selling author of The Midnight Library
“Alice Hoffman has given us such a gift with this series, and this final chapter is sure to be another heartfelt celebration of mothers and daughters and the magic of falling in love.”— LitHub
“A wonderful conclusion to the series with a new generation of Owens to charm us. For fans who like their books with a good dose of magic, and readers who enjoy a family saga with characters that win you over. What a treat!” —Laura Taylor, The Oxford Exchange
"...the story brims with bewitching encounters and suspenseful conflicts revolving around good magic versus bad magic. Hoffman brings satisfying closure to the Owens saga." — Publishers Weekly
"Hoffman brings the Owens family full circle in a tale of finely wrought female relationships, magic, and love....The result is a magical realist tale rich in fresh Owens clan lore, providing a hopeful and satisfying conclusion to Hoffman’s beloved Practical Magic series." — Booklist
" The Book of Magic gives an engrossing and satisfying conclusion to the series."— BuzzFeed
Named as a Most Anticipated Books of Fall 2021 by: Reese's Book Club, LitHub, Scary Mommy, Atlanta Journal-Constitution, St. Paul Pioneer-Press, Yahoo!, Edmonds News, Double Booked Podcast, BuzzFeed, AARP Magazine, Her Campus
LibraryReads October 2021 Hall of Fame Pick
October 2021 Indie Next Pick |
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Virtual Tour Schedule
October 5, 2021
VIRTUAL EVENT: Streiker Center at Temple Emanu-El
11:30 a.m. EST/ 8:30 a.m. PST
Alice Hoffman will be in conversation with Ann Leary to discuss The Book of Magic.
Click here to register!
October 6, 2021
VIRTUAL EVENT: Harvard Book Store
6 p.m. EST/ 3 p.m. PST
Alice Hoffman will be in conversation with Chris Bohjalian to discuss The Book of Magic.
Click here to register!
October 7, 2021
VIRTUAL EVENT: The Poisoned Pen
8 p.m. EST/ 5 p.m. PST
Alice Hoffman will be in conversation with Barbara Peters of Poisoned Pen to discuss The Book of Magic.
Click here to register!
October 12, 2021
VIRTUAL EVENT: Warwick's
7 p.m. EST/ 4 p.m. PST
Alice Hoffman will be in conversation with Kristin Hannah to discuss The Book of Magic.
Click here to register!
October 14, 2021
VIRTUAL EVENT: Montclair Public Library
7 p.m. EST/ 4 p.m. PST
Alice Hoffman will be in conversation with Liz Egan to discuss The Book of Magic.
Click here to register!
October 15, 2021
VIRTUAL EVENT: Bookish Monthly Series
8 p.m. EST/ 5 p.m. PST
Alice Hoffman will be in conversation with Mary Roach, Jay Jay French and John Lithgow
Click here to register!
October 19, 2021
VIRTUAL EVENT: The Book Drunkard Festival
7 p.m. EST/ 4 p.m. PST
Click here to register!
November 15
VIRTUAL EVENT: Books & Books/MJCCA
8 p.m. EST/ 5 p.m. PST
Alice Hoffman will be in conversation with Holly Firfer to discuss The Book of Magic.
Click here to register!
November 17
VIRTUAL EVENT: Adelphi University, Great Books, Great Conversations Series
6:30 p.m. EST/ 3:30 p.m. PST
Click here to register!
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Read an Excerpt from The Book of Magic
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Some stories begin at the beginning and others begin at the end, but all the best stories begin in a library. It was there that Jet Owens saw her fate in a mirror behind the reference desk. Even in her eighties, Jet was still beautiful. Each day she washed with the black soap the family prepared in March during the dark phase of the moon, with every bar then wrapped in crinkly cellophane. Jet had no aches or pains and had never been ill a day in her life, but fate is fate and it can often be what you least expect it to be. On this day, when the daffodils had begun to bloom, Jet saw that she had seven days to live.
The deathwatch beetle had begun to call from within the walls of the Owens Library, a sound that often went unnoticed until it was so loud it was all a person could hear. When your time came, the black beetle would withdraw from hiding and follow you everywhere, no matter where you went. Its presence meant that the past was over and the future no longer existed. This was the moment that revealed how you had walked through the world, with kindness or with fear, with your heart open or closed. It had taken this long for Jet to appreciate that every instant was a marvel. Now everything she saw was illuminated. The sun streaming through the library windows in fierce bands of orange light. A moth tapping at the glass. The sweep of the branches of one of the last elm trees in the Commonwealth, which shadowed the library’s lawn. Some people unravel or run for shelter when their time has come, they curse their fate or hide under their beds, but Jet knew exactly what she wished to do in the last days she’d been granted. She didn’t have to think twice.
Long ago, the library had been a jail where Maria Owens, the first woman in their family to set foot in Massachusetts in 1680, had been confined until the judges announced she would be hanged. Those were the days when witchery was forbidden and women were harshly punished, judged to be dangerous creatures if they talked too much, or read books, or did their best to protect themselves from harm. People said Maria could turn herself into a crow, that she had the ability to enchant men without ever speaking to them directly and to compel other women to do as they pleased, so that they were willing to forsake their proper place in society and in their own families. The court set out to destroy Maria and nearly did, but she could not be drowned, and she did not back down. She blamed love for her undoing, for she’d chosen the wrong man, with dire consequences. Just before the rope that was meant to end her life snapped, and she was miraculously saved, Maria called out a curse upon love.
Beware of love, she had written on the first page of her journal, now exhibited in the library, a display mothers in town often brought their teenaged daughters to view before they started dating. Beware of love that was dishonest and disloyal, love that would lie to you and trick you, love that could break you and condemn you to sorrow, love that could never be trusted. If Maria Owens had been less rash, she might have realized that when you curse another, you curse yourself as well. Curses are like knots, the more you struggle to be free, the tighter they become, whether they’re made of rope or spite or desperation. Maria invoked an enchantment to protect the generations to follow, with her daughters’ and great-granddaughters’ best interests at heart. For their own safety, they must avoid love. Those who failed to abide by this rule would find that engagements would be tragic, and marriages would end with funerals. Over the years, many of those in the Owens family had found ways to outwit the curse, al- ways an intricate and risky endeavor. All the same, a person could trick fate if she dared, she could change her name, never admit her love, skip a legal union, vanish from view, or, for those who were careless and wild, simply plunge in and hope for the best, knowing that sooner or later everyone had to face her own destiny.
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📸 Credit: @book.club.bitches
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📸 Credit: @hilarieburton
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📸 Credit: @read_with_lea
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📸 Credit: @the_ginger_bibliophile
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Featured Independent Bookstore
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Mitchell Kaplan opened Books & Books in 1982 at the ripe old age of 26. An English grad starting law school, Kaplan found himself at bookstores more than the law school library and made a switch propelled by his love of books and his vision of a Miami bookstore that would reflect the great, good bookstores that inspired him such as Shakespeare & Company in Paris, Gotham Book Mart in NYC, and City Lights in San Francisco, among others.
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Mitchell Kaplan at Books & Books in Coral Gables
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“Bookstores were living and breathing examples of the tradition of bookselling that so inspired me, the bookstore as community center, as cultural focal point,” Kaplan explains.
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Books & Books during its 30th anniversary celebration in Coral Gables
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Almost forty years later, Books & Books has become a thriving community center that has a loyal following and regularly draws people visiting from around the country and the world. Home base is Coral Gables, inside a 1927 building listed in the Coral Gables Register of Historic Places that boasts a gorgeous Mediterranean interior courtyard with seating for The Café at Books & Books.
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Books & Books at Bal Harbour Shops
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The Books & Books footprint now extends to include bookstores in the Coconut Grove and Pinecrest neighborhoods and at the ultra-chic, outdoor shopping mall of Bal Harbour Shops, as well as outposts at the Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts, Miami International Airport, and in the heart of the Studios of Key West (in a joint venture with bestselling author Judy Blume and her husband George Cooper).
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Judy Blume and George Cooper pictured in the Studios
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Over the years, Books & Books has established countless wonderful and continually thriving partnerships with practically every civic, educational and cultural group in their community. They bring authors into schools on a regular basis and have a year-round author event program in collaboration with Miami Book Fair, which culminates in an annual literary festival that brings over 500 authors to Miami for a week-long celebration of books and reading every year in November.
Adjusting to pandemic times has meant steering leading authors onto the virtual stage in a series of moderated conversations that have showcased and illuminated books and their creators online, proving that their literary community will continue to follow them wherever they go. Books & Books has inventively joined forces with other indie bookstores around the nation to present these nightly virtual conversations that have featured many big names as well as debut authors, short story writers, poets, YA writers and children’s authors via Crowdcast and Zoom.
Books & Books has also taken its social media strategy to new levels in the past year by fully activating Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. These social media platforms are being used to give fans information for nightly events, livestream author conversations, provide staff suggestions, share new title releases and offer a behind the scenes look at the culture of Books & Books.
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You can shop Books & Books in-person (if you wear a mask!) or online, where books are lovingly and carefully packed by our team and shipped throughout the U.S. and internationally. Donations have been flowing and orders for totes and T- shirts have been ongoing.
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Shelby Recommends
This month Shelby recommends ordering your copy of The Book of Magic from an independent bookstore! Purchase a copy from BookShop.org to support local bookstores or visit my website to see where you can find signed editions from independent book sellers.
Follow Shelby on Instagram @mizindependentshelby
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