Wonderful addition to the Practical magic series! Alice Hoffman did not disappoint! A Must read for fall 2020, just in time for Halloween!

Like the other two books in this backwards-facing series (they are prequels of each other, rather than the standard sequels), I struggled with Magic Lessons from nearly the beginning. To be fair, it is the same style and the same storytelling method as Hoffman employed in both Practical Magic and The Rules of Magic I just simply don't care for it.

There is almost no depth to the story, the characters, or the atmosphere. The narrator (third person) is incredibly removed from the story and distant. What there is a lot of ... is page after page, paragraph after paragraph, of lists of things. Lists of magicky sounding phrases and reminders, formulas and ingredient lists. Lists of feelings at that moment, followed by lists of metaphors and/or similes to further describe said feelings. Lists of things noticed in the scene and then remembered from another, which may or may not spark other lists of other remembrances. Utterly exhausting.

There's an extraordinarily small amount of dialogue throughout the entire book and Hoffman handles the rest of her story by simply and directly "telling" — it is blunt, it is to the point, and it is boring. There is no subtly in any of the story, and I cannot imagine the draw to the entire book being delivered this way (nay, the entire series).

I loved Practical Magic, so this book had a lot to live up to! It definitely did! I love this prequel. It gave so much more information about the family and the characters. I fell in love from the very beginning! I highly recommend this. Love love love the Owens Family!!

Magic Lessons was a beautiful story of the origin of the Owens family. This really tied the other books together. I loved every second of this book. Alice Hoffman wove her magic again. I loved the historical references as well

I came to the Owens family story through Rules of Magic, published years after the first Owens family novel, the immensely popular Practical Magic. I had liked the characters in Rules and realized their story was rooted in the very real struggles of young adulthood. Afterward, I finally read Practical.

The prequel to Practical Magic, Magic Lessons, which begins in 1664 in Essex, England. It is the story of the first Owens witch who cursed all the Owens women's loves.

The teenage witch Maria tragically loses her mentor and adopted mother. Her biological parents send her to the New World as an indentured servant. On St. Kitts, she honed her craft as a healer. Maria falls in love with the New England merchant John Hathorne, who abandons her without knowing she is pregnant. Maria travels to New England to find John.

She finds passage in exchange for nursing and healing the pirate Samuel Dias, whose Jewish family had fled Portugal. He falls in love with Maria.

Her troubles increase when she does find John. Her very life is threatened by the witch hunters of Salem, her daughter stolen from her.

John Hathorne in the novel is based on the actual magistrate who condemned women accused of being witches to death. (Nathaniel Hawthorne, our great early novelist, added that 'w' to his name to disassociate himself with his ancestor.)

Oh! the ways women have been controlled and punished for overstepping the narrow lives men ordained for them. If a woman reads, she must be a witch. If a woman stands up for herself, she must be punished. If a man is attracted to a woman, she has bewitched him and is evil. Bind them in iron and drown them! Nail their feet to the ground and burn them!

And women are still fighting this battle.

Maria understood that a woman with her own beliefs who refuses to bow to those she believes to be wrong can be considered dangerous.~from Magic Lessons by Alice Hoffman

The heart of the novel is, of course, love. How women love the wrong men and suffer for it. "Love someone who will love you back," Hannah advises. But how do we know love when we find it? Young people confuse lust with love, always have. We ignore the signs that later seem obvious. Maria rejects her true love, first because of her passion for John, and later because she vows never to love again.

Love was risky, for marriage required women to abdicate all self-determination and choice. Maria's magic helps women from men who abuse them.

I had a neighbor who said, "What goes around, comes around." Hoffman's rule of magic is similar: you get back threefold whatever you do. Best to do good! What magic you bring into the world becomes your responsibility.

Hoffman weaves her stories with flawed characters whose struggles we recognize, for even if they have magic at their command, they are very human. It is no wonder these books are so popular with readers. They offer romance, challenges, strong female characters, life lessons, and in this book a heavy dose of history.

I received a free egalley from the publisher through NetGalley. My review is fair and unbiased.

I will admit it-I never read Practical Magic, but I loved the movie. So when I got a chance to read Magic Lessons I was very happy to read the books in more of the order that they actually took place. And Magic Lessons is truly magical. Set in the 1600's we meet Hannah Owens, a witch/healer, who finds an abandoned baby girl in a basket guarded by a crow. She names the baby Maria Owens, and recognizing her gift for "the unamed arts," teaches her everything she knows, until she is murdered by fearful men. Her parents claim Maria but her father sells her as an indentured slave in Curacao. Growing up as a servant she meets John Hawthorne and falls in love with this magistrate from Salem. Hawthorne leaves, Maria has a baby girl and vows to follow him so they may wed. She books passage on a ship to the New World and promises to heal the ship's navigator who falls in love with her on the voyage. Thus begins the love triangle at the heart of this beautifully written novel. Maria's story answers a lot of questions brought up in Practical Magic and gives the reader insights into how to use herbs and flowers to cast effective spells. It even dabbles in the black arts and the harm that it might bring to those who use them.
If you have read Practical Magic you will have to reread it after reading Magic Lessons to get the backstory of the Owens sisters. If you haven't read it yet, do yourself a favor and read them in order-the Owen curse will make more sense that way.

I am a big fan of Alice Hoffman’s! I love her writing style as well as the stories she tells. Magic lessons gives us the opportunity to learn life lessons through the eyes and experiences of a family of women who have ‘special skills’. Their experiences put them in positions where they sometimes impetuously choose to use their ‘special skills’ in negative ways. But many times they use their ‘special skills’ to help others. And through all of,these interesting and disturbing experiences they become the person they are meant to be. And, isn’t that what we hope will happen to,us?

Fantastic! For lovers of magic, witchcraft and Alice Hoffman. This compelling book explains the origins of the Owens family. I was completely caught up with the lives of Hannah, Maria and Faith. Through all of the difficulties that they went went through there was triumph and love. I cannot say enough good things about this captivating book. You do not need to be familiar with the other books Practical Magic and The Rules of Magic, Magic Lessons is so well written that it can stand alone. I think this book is a must read for magic and witchcraft lovers.

This book was great! I loved the character development, learning more about Salem in the 1600's and that it had different recipes in it for teas and medicines. The story was wonderful and flowed well. I truly never wanted to put this book down.
I hadn't read the other two books before reading this one and now can't wait to get them, though I'm a little scared they will disappoint after this amazing read.
This book had a little more fluff than I like to read and feel some of it easily could have been cut out. I skimmed more than once because the book went into too many details about this things that didn't matter.
I also kind of wish the book would have been two...one on Maria and another on Faith. Both of them were such strong characters, I felt like they each deserved their own book!
Overall great book that I recommend.
Thank you Netgalley for giving me the opportunity to read this book.

This was just so good and oh the writing was just so great as well. This was just what I wanted the history of Maria Owens the Matriarch Owens Family to be and answered all the questions I had about what happened that made her curse the men who love Owens women. We start in Essex county in England where Hannah Owens a healer finds Maria in the woods abandoned as a baby a true witch. She raises her and treats her like her own and trains her until tragedy strikes. She is taken to Curacao where she is indentured as a household servant for 3 years until her contract is up and this is where she meets the man she thinks is her fate. She ignores all signs that point to this being a bad idea and falls in "love" and while he abandons her she follows him to the New World. The good and the bad of love and what you convince yourself is true until you finally realize that what you wanted was right in front of you the whole time. This was just so great and just showcases the bonds between mothers and daughters and the 3 generations of Owens women that we get to meet in this story.

Thanks to Simon & Schuster and Netgalley for the complimentary copy of this book in e-book form. All opinions in this review are my own.

Magic Lessons is the prequel to Alice Hoffman’s 2 other wonderful books tracing the line of the Owens women, Practical Magic and The Rules of Magic. It begins with the matriarch of the family, Maria, being raised by Hannah, who found her abandoned in an English field, with a crow to guard her. Hannah recognizes that Maria has a gift of magic and teaches her what she can, before events year the young Maria away and into a life of discovering her powers, and what is important in life.
A bit slower for me, especially in the beginning, than the first two books, but I did enjoy it and recommend it. Lovely writing, and it has natural remedies and cures for illness both physical and of the heart from Maria, her natural mother, and Hannah.
Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with this advance copy of magic in exchange for my honest review.

4.5 stars for this magical novel!

Magic Lessons is a serious solemn story compared to Alice Hoffman’s previous “magic” books (“Practical Magic” and “The Rules of Magic”.) In this novel, she takes the reader back to 1664, the beginning of the Owens’ family saga and their practice of magic. This is the story of Maria, abandoned by her mother and raised by Hannah Owens, who teaches Maria about the herbs and spells she uses to help local women. It is a dangerous practice in a dark time period in England marked by male domination and men’s suspicion of women who are healers and who display independent thinking. I found the early scenes to be somber and dark, with many mean men whose ignorance and fear resulted in innocent women being imprisoned, persecuted, and put to death horribly. Even Maria’s birth mother and father were capable of meanness and trickery involving Maria’s “safety” and future.

By age 11, Maria’s passage to the New World begins a mesmerizing story of her experiences and growth into adulthood practicing the “Nameless Art”. The reader is treated to many historical details of life in the colonies, especially Salem and New York, in the 1680s and 1690s. The time period wasn’t as dark as Maria’s years in England, but clearly there was still significant persecution of women and some religious sects. Maria persists and experiences false love, real love, and motherhood. She meets hard men but also kind helpful men who respect her and support her drive for independence and just treatment as a woman. I found the story satisfying and think it rounds out well the saga of the “magical” Owens women.

As I mentioned earlier, the way the story unfolds is mesmerizing and I was fascinated by New England’s early history. It is clear the author researched the era’s mores and culture. At times, there were so many facts presented that the writing felt a bit instructional and somewhat less connected to Maria’s personal story.

Like Alice Hoffman’s other two books in the “magic” series, this story is ultimately about mothers and daughters, love and loyalty, and the seemingly never-ending quest by women for independence and equality. Whether it is 1664 or 2020, the effort continues.

This can be a stand-alone novel, but just for fun I reread “The Rules of Magic” and “Practical Magic.” I continue to be awed by Hoffman’s command of language and nuanced thought-provoking prose. I highly recommend this book to admirers of Alice Hoffman, and readers interested in herbs and natural remedies, as well as intelligently written women’s historical fiction.

Thank you to NetGalley and Simon & Schuster for the ARC in exchange for my honest review. It was a great pleasure to preview this wonderful novel.

Magic Lessons, written by Alice Hoffman is the perfect prequel to Practical Magic. Maria Owens is an amazing woman, full of courage and strength. She is also the Matriarch of the Owens Family from Practical Magic and The Rules of Magic.

It is very easy to slide into the world that Hoffman creates in Magic Lessons. Religious people with cold hearts and judgement in their eyes are contrasted with the kindness that Maria learns from her adopted mother, Hannah Owens, since birth. In the 1600's, life is hard but there are times of joy and peace with the isolated life that Hannah and Maria live. We watch as Maria grows up, loses her mother, meets her biological mother and sets out on a journey far away to live her new life.

With Maria's maturity we see a woman who gets to reinvent herself time after time and a woman who falls deeply, madly in love with someone who becomes her whole world: her daughter, Faith. We get to watch Faith grow up and see all the reasons why she would be angry and have reasons to hate.

The reader also gets to travel along with Faith and her familiar, Keepe,r as she begins her journey of revenge living among the Puritans.

I love the writing- settings seem to pop off the page because the scenes are written with care and imagery that is simple and clear. What these women go through serve as the foundation for the generations to come. I want to continue to rave and rave, but all the spoilers are at the tips of my fingers and will leap off the page if I keep going. Needless to say, I so enjoyed Magic Lessons and love how it blends into the books that are next in the series!!!

Thank you NetGalley and Alice Hoffman for this temporary, digital advance review copy for me to read and enjoy. My review is voluntary and my opinions are my own.

All the stars for this magical book! As a dietitian, I feel like many of the “spells” are really nutrient based, medicinal, and/or somewhat psychosomatic. However, I loved the mystical overtones of this story about women’s rights in the 1600s, and about love and loss. Truly a beautiful book. Thank you NetGalley for the ARC.

"Magic Lessons" is a compelling narrative that tugs readers back into the annals of the 1600's where Maria Owens moves between England, Curaçao, New York City, and Salem, Massachusetts practicing the Unnamed Arts and learning complex lessons about life, society, magic - and above all else - love.

Although the beginning slogs a little, it picks up considerably after she follows the man who seduces her to Salem to unravel some bitter realities about who he is. About what their time together has reaped. It's an action which sets off a chain of events that will ripple outward for years - not only for herself and her daughter, Faith, but also among those they meet along the way in addition to the many generations of Owens still to come.

Ultimately this is a book about both the blessed and the cursed sides of love. How it can either ruin a life or set someone free.

The thin line drawn between the two is what anchors the plot as well as the conflicts the characters face in a foreboding yet altogether bewitching kind of propulsion. It allows for themes like sympathy vs. antipathy, vengeance vs. forgiveness, and mother/daughter loyalty vs. betrayal to co-exist harmoniously.

Overall, an absorbing witch-tastic read that works as well as a standalone as it does as part of a larger series. Thanks to NetGalley and Simon & Schuster for the ARC!

Thank you NetGalley for the digital ARC. I can say that this is my best read so far this year! This is the BEST book of the entire Owen story. I found myself waking up in the middle of the night to read this book! This book goes all the way back to beginning of the Owen’s history and it is the most interesting story!! A must read and TWO THUMBS UP! Wow!!!

Having been a huge fan of Practical Magic followed by The Rules of Magic, I wasted no time in getting my hands on Magic Lessons, the newest offering by Alice Hoffman. I needed to learn more about Maria Owens and the curse that plagued the Owens women throughout centuries and didn’t mind the trip back in time to do so.
What I dove into was a wonderfully written tale of 3 generations of Owens women beginning with Hannah and closing with Faith. I truly enjoyed the history lessons the author spun into the tale which had me walking away from this novel with yet a deeper understanding of the early settlers, including the life at sea, illnesses of the period and remedies, lots of glorious, beautiful remedies! I recognized many of the naturopathic offerings as well as practices of “the Nameless Art”. I found myself attached to each familiar and loved them as my own. I also have this new desire to make some black soap and courage tea!
Magic Lessons is such a rich read filled with depth and brimming with the magic of the old ways (although it leans Wiccan with some reference to “left handed” magic). I highly recommend this latest offering to anyone that enjoys a book spun with magic and history.
Thank you to NetGalley and Simon & Schuster for my electronic ARC in exchange for my authentic and honest review. Many thanks to Alice Hoffman for continuing the story that has had so many of us enchanted with the story of the Owens women.

If you liked Rules of Magic and Practical Magic, you'll also love Magic Lessons. The legend of Maria Owens, already a familiar name to those of us who have read the rest of the series, comes to life in this beautiful and compelling story. This book felt a bit darker than the previous two, but with that it might be my favorite of the series so far! Sometimes prequels can feel forced or shoehorned in, but not this one; it has a beautiful flow that gives even more richness to both the sequels--and if you're anything like me, makes you want to read them both again immediately! This will definitely be a keep-and-reread for me.

Magic Lessons is where the Owens family story begins. Join Maria Owens on her quest to make a better life for herself and her daughter, Faith, during one of the most historic time periods in Salem, Massachusetts. As bloodline witches, the Owens women are enchanting and magical. People, especially men, are drawn to them. This is where the original Owens women curse derives. To love, or not love at all. Is it worth having the threatening death beetle at your door?

This was such a beautiful read. Hoffman does not disappoint with her magical writing. I first fell in love with the Practical Magic story when I saw the movie adaptation. However, I ended up reading the book as well as The Rules of Magic, and my adoration has only grown. Characters in the previous books mention Maria Owens enough to make the reader wonder about this matriarch, so when I found out this book was being published; I was beyond excited. It was a pleasure reading the back story on Maria and how she forged a powerful, and cursed, line of witches.

I ended up giving the book ⅘ stars solely on the fact that some parts were just too detailed. There were paragraphs I either skipped or skimmed because they were just descriptors. I recommend reading Magic Lessons to anyone. Whether you have read Practical Magic and The Rules of Magic, or not. Hoffman is an artist and I look forward to reading more of her books.

I waited more than 20 years for this book. Upon reading Practical Magic in 1998, I kept thinking back to the origination of the Owens curse. When The Rules of Magic came out I, once again, found my curiosity returning to Maria. Magic Lessons gives a beautifully detailed foundation to all that followed. If you haven't read Practical Magic, I would suggest Magic Lessons first. By all means, read the (so far) trilogy for pure enjoyment and don't worry about the order. I'm now wondering if there will be more stories that will cover the centuries leading up to The Rules of Magic which, by the way will become a TV series on HBO Max. I can hardly wait!