'I shrugged and said nothing. A woman like my mother shouldn’t have children.'

Fans who follow Alice Hoffman were more over the moon to learn that she will have a book out in 2020 about Maria Owens. There is something magical about the fictional women we can’t let go of. Add that to the HBO Max pilot of a series based on her prequel to Practical Magic, The Rules of Magic following “the Aunts” Jet and Franny as well as their alluring brother Vincent in the 1960’s. But while we wait, we have a short story you can read in less than an hour. Other authors that are a part of the inheritance collection through Amazon Crossings include Julie Orringer, Anthony Marra, Jennifer Haigh and Alexander Chee.

In Everything My Mother Taught Me young Adele (named after a soap her mother Nora once bought in a fancy shop) is more like a curse to her mother than a beloved daughter. Nora is a selfish, vain woman who loves all the things that don’t belong to her, especially other women’s husbands. It is seeing the true ugliness beneath the surface of her mother’s beauty, of witnessing her shameful ways that forces Adele into silence, even things done against her own gentle father. She is ordered by her mother, “don’t say a word” and she doesn’t, she simply stops speaking altogether. She is the sole keeper of all her mother’s lies, secrets. After her beloved father’s sad death, her mother Nora finds a job as a housekeeper at a lighthouse on an island in Essex County. With Adele in tow, Nora brings her conniving ways to the island, that could destroy more than her daughter’s future. Adele’s silence is a protective shield, and for those around her whose lurid behavior demands safekeeping, her quietude benefits their deviousness. What they take for granted is that there is power in silence and there will come a time when Adele will have to find her voice.

When a woman vanishes, it is what Adele knows that could become the key to freedom. Will Adele be brave enough to use what she knows to solve the mystery?

Not all women should have children, this is an inheritance of pain. Set in the 1900’s, children were expected to remain fiercely loyal to their parents. But what about rotten, sour mothers? What is a child, especially a young girl to do when her mother is all she has, her only means of survival? Will she discover bravery? Grit?

A coming of age under a cloud of misery, but as with many of Hoffman’s stories, women always have power if they are strong enough to find it.

Publication Date: December 19, 2019

Amazon Original Stories

A very short, well-written story. Alice Hoffman and I have an unpredictable relationship. I adored The Dovekeepers, but nothing else from her blew me away.
What I liked most about this novella, is that it grabbed my attention immediately. Unlike many other readers I thought the ending was something I've read before.
Definitely worth your time.

A brilliant and atmospheric short story from Alice Hoffman, about a young girl who is little more than an encumbrance to her mother, Nora Ivie. Adeline, named after a soap, adores her father, once a sailor, but then a cobbler until he becomes seriously ill. After his death, she chooses to not talk, taking delight in thwarting her mother. Her mother becomes a housekeeper on a lighthouse on the Essex County Thacer Island. Despite expecting to hate it, Adeline grows to love it, getting close to the kind Julia. Her mother proves to be a problematic presence until Adeline decides to takes matters into her own hands. This is a well written tale of a mother-daughter relationship that is compulsive reading and so gripping. My only problem was that it was short! Otherwise, highly recommended! Many thanks to Amazon Original Stories for an ARC.

A short story about a child who chooses muteness after a family tragedy, when she is forced to live alone with her narcissistic mother.

Set at the turn of the 20th century, there is a lot crammed into such a short story. I found the whole thing quite unusual. Its told through the childs eyes and covers many subjects through its short stay.

Enjoyable, if all to brief.


Thanks to Netgalley, Amazon and Alice Hoffman for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Thanks to Net Galley and Amazon for e-arc of this book for this review. Alice Hoffman writes an emotional short story that leaves you wondering and cheering at the same time. Estranged from my own mother and having survived a childhood home filled with abuse.....this short story spoke to me! It is read in under an hour but covers many relevant topics and told from a mature 12-year old viewpoint who you cheer for at the end....A great intro to Ms. Hoffman if you have not read her famous novels!

I recently finished a book told by a six year old girl who adored her mother. It was a difficult but uplifting story. Such was not the case with this short story by Alice Hoffman. The story narrated by Adeline commences in her twelfth year. She describes her mother as “ the sort of person who saw only herself and her shadow.” When her father dies, Adeline feels she has lost all the good in her life and ceases to speak from that day forward.

Adeline leads us to discover all the hurt and despair she suffers following her selfish and conniving mother to Thacher Island forty miles north of Boston. Sparsely inhabited it is the home of the lighthouse keepers and their families. Beautifully described it is easy to understand the isolation and desolation that encompasses the island’s dwellers. Adeline’s job is minding the younger children while her mother was to help with the cooking, heavy cleaning and laundry. A beautiful, manipulative woman, a man with a roving eye, and the battleground is set.

Hoffman prose is elegant. Her ability to capture the raw emotions of a child used and betrayed is skillful. She has taken a simple story and made it into a many layered treatise of self-indulgence.

Thank you NetGalley and Amazon Original Stories for a copy.

Covering death, adultery, selective mutism and moral dilemma Alice Hoffman's novel packs a big punch for short story. I thoroughly enjoyed it and selfishly wish it was longer.

NetGalley and Amazon were kind enough to provide me with a free e-arc, in exchange for an honest review.

This is a short story - a very short story. It's part of Amazon's Inheritance series, which are designed to be read in one sitting, which this certainly was. It's got a fair bit of density within it's brevity. I don't want the review to be longer than the story, so I'll leave it there.

Alice Hoffman has just gained a fan with this story of twelve year old Adeline, who loves her kind, compassionate father with all her heart. Adeline's despises her cheating mother and after Adeline's beloved father dies, she and her mother go live on an island so her mom can work as a servant for the lighthouse keepers' families and Adeline can tend to the the children of the families.

From the time Adeline's father died, she's chosen to not speak. She loves life on the island and finds a true friend in lightkeeper number three's wife, Julia. Adeline feels the same loyalty to Julia as she felt for her father and she finds the strength to give Julia the help she needs to escape the cruelty of her husband and Adeline's mother. This is a story of a very strong girl, made strong by the love her her late father and by witnessing the wanton and mean ways of her mother.

I want to read the other stories in Hoffman's Inheritance series after enjoying this story so much. Thank you to Amazon Original Stories and NetGalley for this ARC.

This short story packs so much emotional punch! Masterful writing to draw you in so completely. Alice Hoffman is in the psyche of an abused wife, a child who has lost her father and an uncaring, selfish mother. The characters are deep and well rounded. Bravo!

Everything My Mother Taught Me is a short story by award-winning author, Alice Hoffman. When her father became ill, Adeline began to understand her mother. When her kind, loving father died, it confirmed for her that Nora Ivie was interested only in satisfying herself, and not at all in being a mother. Adeline stopped talking.

But Nora now had to work for a living, and she opted to go to remote Thacher island, as housekeeper for the three lightkeeper families. Nora hated the work but she quickly showed her true character, both in her cruelty to Adeline and her adulterous behaviour. With a little help from clever Adeline, though, karma stepped in. A short but powerful read from a proven author.
This unbiased review is from an uncorrected proof copy provided by NetGalley and Amazon Original Stories.

A short but touching story about Adeline, a young girl who is selectively mute after her beloved father dies. She reflects on what she inherited from him, mostly a sense of right and wrong, and she behaves accordingly when confronted with a situation that feels wrong to her. In this case, everything she learned from her mother includes behaviors and attitudes that Adeline is determined NOT to replicate.

Thank You to NetGalley and Amazon Original Stories for providing me with an ARC of Alice Hoffman’s short story. In exchange I offer my unbiased review.

While only 28 pages long, this story leaves an impact. Alice Hoffman has a mastery of prose. A young girl and her detached mother move to a remote island to work in a lighthouse. Sad and passionate.

What a good writer Alice Hoffman is! It's really impressive that she has managed to convey so much in this 28 page short story of a young girl, ill treated and unloved by her adulterous mother in early 1900s Massachusetts. Her characters are fully formed with the tensions and drama between them clearly outlined and the young girl's thoughts and actions informing the narrative so well. Set in a small community of lighthouse keepers and their families on an island, it's very atmospheric with the sounds of the sea, and the children's games on the beach in summer. Highly recommended!

Part of a series of short stories, the Amazon Original Inheritence Collection, to be published on 19th Dec 2019.

Everything My Mother Taught Me is a short story by Alice Hoffman and is one of five in the Inheritance series.       It would make a great introduction for those who haven't yet sampled  the work of this prolific author and I'm sure her existing fans will be eager to get their hands on it.     Having read and enjoyed two of her vast collection of titles I was excited to receive a copy of this as a digital ARC from NetGalley.        I was not disappointed nor was I surprised at the quality of the story which demonstrated her engaging and versatile writing style.

Adeline is the child protagonist in this story.    She's twelve years old and is deeply saddened by her father's death - a man she described as kind hearted,  trusting and patient.  She was also deeply saddened to now be in her mothers sole "care"- her mother being a woman she described as selfish and as having ruined their lives.   

Given the brevity of this story I won't go further into the plot.    With it's themes of mother/daughter relationships, loyalty and betrayals, and a bit of a twist in the tail, I suspect you will be thinking about this story for longer than it takes to read it.   Surely a good sign.

Thanks to Amazon Original Stories and NetGalley for the opportunity of reading and reviewing this ARC.
3.5 stars rounded up on GoodReads.

When Adeline’s mother tells her to stop talking and shut up, she does just that, even as she watches her mother have affairs with many men. Hoffman weaves a beautiful tale of lies, deceit, and coming of age.

If you are unclear about the book it is "Alice Hoffman’s 'Everything My Mother Taught Me' is part of Inheritance, a collection of five stories about secrets, unspoken desires, and dangerous revelations between loved ones. Each piece can be read or listened to in a single setting. By yourself, behind closed doors, or shared with someone you trust". I have been enjoying Amazon's short story collections lately, so I was very excited to read one by Alice Hoffman. Thank you for the opportunity to read and review this short story.

A beautiful short story with emotive writing and complicated relationships.

The story is set in the early 1900s on an island off Massachusetts. The pages are filled with stunning imagery and lyrical writing. It is a tale of three women and the paths they must take for survival.

“There are those who insist that mothers are born with love for their children and place them before all other things, including their own needs and desires. This was not the case with us.”

Adeline’s mother is young and beautiful and feels burdened by her husband and child. When she’s widowed unexpectedly, Nora must take on a housekeeping role at a lighthouse on a small island. Feeling that the job is beneath her, Nora seduces one of the light keepers even though he is married in order to elevate her status.

The death of her young father leaves Adeline mute. Neglected and lonely, Adeline befriends the lighthouse keeper’s wife. Their unlikely friendship transcends the spoken word and is powerful enough to shape their entire lives.

“She would have to do away with herself in order to have a life of her own.”

Never knew Hoffman wrote short stories, but I thought this one was well done. Plus, always a draw for me, it was partially set in a lighthouse, though not too detailed a setting. Liked the premise, liked the execution and enjoyed the ending. Gives credence to the adage, revenge is sweet, or maybe, revenge is a dish better served cold. Both could apply.

ARC from Netgalley.

What a powerful short story. It’s early 1900’s when Adeline’s father dies and leaves her with her mother who has no interest in being a mother. They have to move to an almost inhabitable island so her mother can work in one of three lighthouses cleaning. Adeline meets Sarah and they hatch a plan to better their lives.

This is only 30 or so pages and part of an Amazon Originals series called Inheritance. I enjoyed this a lot and look forward to the opportunity to read the other two in the series. Thanks to Alice Hoffman, netgalley and Amazon for this advanced copy to review.