A masterful blending of history and fiction. This book educates with Hoffman's detailed description of the persecution of witchcraft in Massachusetts and entertains and enthralls with the strength of the woman who worked her magic while preserving herself and her child's lives. A strong underlying love between an unrequited ship's captain and the main character brings the story from sadness and loss to a truly deserved happy ending.

I have looked forward to reading this book for months and finally found the time this past weekend - which did NOT disappoint. The build up only made the book that much more exciting to read! There is something exciting and alluring reading about this portion of history!

I appreciate NetGalley for giving me the opportunity to read Magic Lessons by Alice Hoffman in exchange for an honest review. Let me start by saying that I haven't read the other books in the Practical Magic series. You'll learn about Owens family curse that plays prominently in the other books. Maria is left alone in the woods as a baby. She is found by a witch named Hannah, who realizes Maria is a witch like her. Maria's story takes her from England to indentured servitude on the island of Curacao. Maria falls in love with a man who is visiting the island from Salem, Massachusetts and has his baby. She manages to follow him to Salem and finds out he's not the man she thinks he is. Salem in the 1690's is not a good place for a witch to be. This story is about love of family and doing what ever you have to do to protect your family - with some fun magic thrown in. I enjoyed it.

Thanks to netgalley for the ARC.

I was so happy to be back in the world of the Owens women that I probably would have given this at least four stars, regardless of content. As it was, it's a solid 4.5 for me (perhaps because I'm comparing it to The Rules of Magic, which would have been extraordinarily difficult to top). The story of Maria and Faith is, like all of Hoffman's books, full of beauty, joy, sadness, hope. And much like each of the Owens women in Hoffman's prior books, the heroines in this story are proud, strong, stubborn - remarkable each in her own way. The historical elements peppered throughout were interesting, and the book is much richer for the historically accurate world building. Some of the secondary characters, unfortunately, fell flat for me - Ruth, Rebecca, Finney, even ones I wanted to adore like Abraham and Catherine Durant. I felt there was room for more character development, so was disappointed when it was lacking. But, as I said, I'm willing to overlook a lot just to re-immerse myself with the Owens, especially ones as interesting and lovable as Maria and Faith.

This book tells the beginning of the Owen’s witches. The book that started it all. Having read the other two books, I would have liked to have started with this one.

Dark, gritty, angry and witchy as hell, Magic Lessons by Alice Hoffman was a marvelous read! I was entranced from the very first page and am absolutely in love with this tale of love, revenge and seething anger.

'Magic Lessons' takes us through the history of the Owens bloodline, starting from Maria, who is abandoned as a baby and is discovered by Hannah Owens, who is a healer herself. The story continues as Maria passes on her gifts to her daughter Faith. This gorgeously written book is brimming with feminism and bubbling with anger against the wrongs done time and again to women who have minds of their own and determination to carve their own paths and make their own destinies.

The Owens women lived during the time when women could be convicted of being a witch and sentenced to death for practically anything - being able to read and write, not listening to her husband, having a birth mark, or wearing colorful clothes. Hundreds of women were burned or hanged as a part of the witch-trials, and many more perished in the torturous conditions they were kept in. The injustice of it all hit me hard, and I could very well feel the anger of the Owens women. Embittered and betrayed, the Owens women have to learn to steer clear of love and even dabble in dark arts to protect themselves.

The complexities of female relationships a constant theme running through the book. While one would expect women to stand for each other, no matter what, in such a time, the reality was complicated. There were characters such as Hannah and Maria who used their talents to support their sisters, and then there were women such as Rebecca and Martha who mistrusted and manipulated every other woman. Alice Hoffman beautifully represented the presence of both darkness and light, and the eventual triumph of good over evil.

In addition to all the emotion, there is no dearth of magic and witchiness in this marvelous book. There is the good kind, to heal, to bring love, to give courage, and then there is the darker kind, which has bitter consequences. The overall result is a spellbinding tale of magic, love, betrayal, revenge and feminism. Totally worth a perfect five-star rating!

I received this book from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. Maria is a strong woman in the heart of Salem. She knows her powers, but knows.She has to be careful. This book takes you on a fantastical journey. Unputdownable!

Prequels are risky propositions- after all, how exciting can the journey be when you've already arrived at the destination? In the case of Magic Lessons, the task is twice as tricky as the novel is actually a prequel to a prequel. Alice Hoffman first wrote about the Owens women in 1995 with Practical Magic. If you didn't read the novel you probably saw the movie starring Sandra Bullock (Sally Owens) and Nicole Kidman (Gillian Owens)-although the movie had more in common with the campy '60's TV Show Bewitched than any Salem Witch Trial. Twenty two years later Miss Hoffman returned with The Rules of Magic-set several generations before Practical Magic it focused on Franny, Jet, and Vincent Owens. Both books touched on Owens family matriarch Maria and the curse that haunted the Owens women for centuries, but Maria's full story is now told in Magic Lessons. Abandoned as an infant, Maria is taken in by Hannah Owens who teaches Maria about the "Unnamed Arts"-the gift of magic that ultimately causes Maria to be accused of witchcraft and tried in Salem. But Hannah also teaches Maria her most important lesson-only love somone who will love you back. This theory is put to the test when Maria falls in love with John Hathorne. Although Maria believes her future is with John, to John she is just a diversion from his "real" life as a husband and father. After learning all that Maria endures it's easy to understand why she put a spell on herself and a curse on all future Owens women that any man who falls in love with them will die. While Practical Magic was lighthearted and dreamy, Magic Lessons is dark and depressing. As in the earlier books, the women in Magic Lessons are strong and capable, while (most) men are weak and incompetent. Very few could write as beautifully and eloquently as Alice Hoffman does about betrayal, prejudice, and the fear that led to the death of hundreds of women tried as witches. The words flow seemlessly off the pages of Magic Lessons and tear at your heart. There are "potions" for illnesses of the mind and body sprinkled throughout the book that add charm to an otherwise tragic story. Magic Lessons is the perfect beginning and end for Maria Owens. How she learns about the power of love, the unbreakable bonds of family, and the strength to endure the worst of circumstances is her lasting legacy. It's a beautiful story that will stir your soul practically like magic.

Thanks to Net Galley and Simon & Schuster for providing me an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review. This book is simply amazing! I have read most of Alice Hoffman’s books and I am always impressed, but this one was extra special. Her ability to to bring the reader along in the story, visualize the setting and connect with the characters is truly superb. This story is the prequel to Practical Magic and follows the life of Maria Owens, and her daughter Faith, and explains the curse on the men who love an Owens woman. As you read the story you are drawn into the feelings and motivation of all of the women (and men) in the story and it is easy to become emotional at some of the outcome. The magic of her writing really shines in the section about Martha, who covets Maria’s daughter Faith. In a few paragraphs the author is able to convey all of Martha’s feelings along with the life experiences that generates the envy and compels her to take the action she does. It is the understanding of this woman’s motivation that truly draws you into the narrative. I really can say only positive things about this book.

Alice Hoffman is a queen in the world of magical realism, and for good reason. Her ability to deftly insinuate magic into the mundane, allows readers to slide effortlessly into a world where planting lavender for luck and heeding the grave click of a deathwatch beetle is common practice. The Rules of Magic, a prequel of sorts, more of a history really, to her widely acclaimed Practical Magic is a delightful return to the Owens family of women. Centered on Maria Owens, the book follows her winding journey from an orphan in the forests and meadows of England to a woman and mother who does “as she pleases” in 1690’s Salem Massachusetts. Along the way there is danger, love, both false and true, and a trial for both the soul of her daughter as well as the women of Salem.
All in all, Magic Lessons is a true Hoffman piece: magic, love, a red head drawn to mischief, and an ultimate happy ending. The magic, as always, is in the journey.

Lovely prequel for anyone who likes Practical Magic (book or movie). Great character development and historical setting. Romance readers will also be delighted by the read.

Practical Magic is one of my favorite books, a dearly loved comfort read I've reread numerous times. I was less enamored of Hoffman's prequel to that story, The Rules of Magic, and even less taken Magic Lessons. The story of the founding of the Owens family is interesting, but Hoffman's style has changed considerably between the first novel and this one, incorporating more and more elements of historical fiction and less of the fairy-tale style that I believe made Practical Magic so beautiful and deeply resonant. I think there are plenty of readers who will enjoy this expansion on the Owens mythology. I'm simply more in favor of preserving some of the mystery of the earlier characters and moving ahead rather than looking back.

Most of the books I read these days are Advanced Reading Copies. I try not to post reviews too far ahead of time, but lately, everything. Most of the books I read these days are Advanced Reading Copies. I try not to post reviews too far ahead of time, but lately, everything great that I've got in my stack is a Fall release. This prequel falls into that category with an October 6 release date.
Although this is part of a series, you do not need to have read either Practical Magic or The Rules of Magic to have a satisfying reading experience with this story. If you have read and loved either of these books, you'll also want to read it. Practical Magic published first in the 1990's has endured in its popularity in part due to the 1998 movie version. The Rules of Magic is the prequel to that story with the Aunts' childhood explored through the 1960s-1970s. Adding this prequel and going back to the 1600s leaves plenty of books/time to cover many years and Owens women to catch up until now.
Maria Owens is a name known as the witch who cursed all men who would love an Owens woman to an early death. It isn't too much else said about her in Practical Magic, and we know that she lived during the Salem Witch Trials and that she was so broken-hearted that she wished to save future Owens women from similar heartache. In this novel, we read Maria's story when she is an infant left behind by her biological mother for kind Hannah Owens to find and raise.
In many ways, this book reads more like historical fiction than the first two installments.
Maria becomes involved with John Hathorne, who was a judge during the Salem Witch trials, a rather evil one who never apologized for his actions, and who was also the great-great-grandfather of Nathaniel Hawthorne, the author, who may have added the w to his name to distance himself from his family.
Alice Hoffman in an interview with Library Journal
Once you add real people into a fictional story, it becomes undeniably more plausible that the story may be more accurate than not. I adored those details in this story. Maria travels from the old world to the new and then within the colonies, and the story turns and twists through real events, all while staying true to these fictional character arcs. ( And yes, I know the definition of magical realism)
The origin of Maria Owens wasn't a happy story, yet it is compelling in its realism. I felt like this is the perfect book to read in 2020, when so many of us are awash in terrible circumstances.
The traditional rules of magic ring true:
"Do as you will, but harm no one. What you give will be returned threefold."

5 out of 5 stars.

Thanks to NetGalley for providing an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

If there is magic in this world, then the art of storytelling is one of them, because Alice Hoffman knows how to weave a tale so binding the reader falls deep into the ocean of it. As it has been with all her books, so it is with Magic Lessons.

Here, we go back to before the time of Sally and Gillian Owens, before the Aunts, Franny and Jet. Back to the time of the Salem witch trials. But first, we start in a land far away from the gloomy and gray mayhem of the East Coast. We start in a cottage, where woman, Hannah, lives alone with her garden until one day she comes across a baby with a crow perched on her basket. Hannah takes in the girl who, although abandoned, was clearly loved, as the blue threads of protection are the binding of her blanket. Hannah takes Maria home and raises her as her own, loving her, teaching her The Nameless Art that she has taught herself.

But Maria wasn't born to a self-taught healer. She was born to a bloodline witch, one who thought she knew who she wanted in love, blinded by a man's ability to cloak himself in pretty lies. Rebecca, one fated day, comes to see the child she gave up, and brings death and destruction close behind.

Having watched the only woman she ever knew as mother burn, Maria sets off to find Rebecca, only to find a woman who, despite having been burned by the appearance of love, has fallen in love again. This time, with Maria's father, who promptly sells her off into servitude on a beautiful island where she walks barefoot and befriends women who have a different sort of magic.

After serving her five years, having been mesmerized and fooled by a man she thinks she loves, Maria boards a boat sailed by a Jewish father and son. Saving the son, Samuel, changes Maria's life in ways she doesn't understand at the tender age of 16. She is blinded by her own shortcomings. She is also pregnant, and searching for the man who gave her diamonds and a sapphire, who swam with turtles, and disappeared in the night.

The pages burn in neverland as I swipe from page to page on my phone, drowning in the beautiful story that tells of the love that a woman has for her daughter, be it her own or one that was put upon her, and the lengths she'll go, miles she'll travel, violences she will endure, and sleep she will forsake to find and save her daughter.

Maria, landing in Salem, finds that her beloved wants nothing to do with her, save a midnight tryst in the cabin he put her in in the woods, far away from the prying eyes of neighbors who may see his comings and goings. Eventually, that illusion fades, and Maria is as Hannah was...the woman in the woods, raising her daughter. But in a time where women are considered witches for reading and speaking and looking in a man's eyes, it is a wind-down clock ticking to when Maria is accused of witchcraft and taken to jail. It is at that time that another woman, one who always wanted a daughter but had none, steps in and offers to take Faith, Maria's six-year-old daughter, so that she does not have to suffer jail with the mother. So begins the steps down paths that cannot be untrod.

In Practical Magic, we were given the story behind the curse of the Owens' women, but only a small bit. Hoffman expands on that negative space and weaves a tale of love and hate, mothers and daughters, magistrates and witches, sea and land, curses, and the breaking of those curses. Beautiful and captivating as ever, if there was ever one who could cast enchantment on others, it is Alice Hoffman.

4.5 Stars

I have enjoyed several of Alice Hoffman’s later works, so I was very excited to have the opportunity to read a prequel to Practical Magic. I felt the beginning of the book was a bit choppy and tedious with the lists of spell ingredients, but by the end I was hooked and I look forward to reading the rest of the books in the series. It’s truly as much a story about love and what it means to be a woman than just about magic.

Thank you to Netgalley and Simon & Schuster for the ARC in exchange for my honest review.

There's something about the way that Alice Hoffman writes that transports you and you feel like you're a part of the story. I love the whole Practical Magic series, and this "origin" story prequel is just as good as every other book in the series. We finally get to learn about the original Owens woman, Maria Owens. Her story is not not a happy one, but if it was then we couldn't get the curse that would create such interesting stories like Frances, Bridget and Vincent (my favorite) or eventually Sally and Gilly. I love that by the end of the book, even if we have only spent a year in a the life of the character we feel like we know them. I hope that we get more amazing books in these series, though I'm not sure there are any characters left to discuss in great detail.

This fabulous story is about love, family, magic, and so much more! I loved reading this prequel, and I don't think it's necessary to have read any other books in the series to enjoy this one.

I thought Hoffman did a fabulous job with the storytelling of this book. It's got its own quality of magic in the writing that draws you in and refuses to let go! I think that readers that enjoy witches, magic, and stories of family will enjoy this book!

I was provided an advanced reader's copy of this book for free. I am leaving my review voluntarily.

This book is the prequel to Practical Magic and The Rules of Magic. In it we get to meet Maria Owens, the woman who was the ancestor of the Owens women and men who all had magical powers. Baby Maria was abandoned in a field in rural England near the home of Hannah Owens. Hannah, a witch, realized that Maria had the gift and instructed her in the Unnamed Arts.
Eventually Maria’s parents return and her father sold her to a sea captain heading for Aruba. It is while working as an indentured servant that Maria met a man from Salem Massachusetts who professed his love for her. He returned to his home and pregnant Maria followed him. When she got to Salem she discovered that she had been deceived. Then a jealous neighbor exposed Maria as a witch and she was put on trial. She was able to escape and leave Massachusetts.

The lesson she learned, always love someone who loves you, ruled her life and those of her descendants.

Hoffman is a master storyteller and has written a book the reader will remember for a long time. History buffs will also enjoy the tales of hysteria in Salem in the 1600s as well as those of the more tolerant inhabitants of New York City in the same period.

I received this ARC from Edelweiss and the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

4.5
This is the story of Maria who was left as an infant in a snowy field in rural England in the 1600’s.
She was found by Hannah Owens who raises her with love and realizes early on that she has the gift, as does Hannah herself.. she’s a witch. Hannah teaches her all she knows of healing, herbal remedies, etc.
Maria will travel to Curaçao as a young woman after being sold into servitude by her birth father.. there she falls in love with a man who is visiting there from Salem, Massachusetts. This man betrays her and she ends up traveling to Salem to find him with her their young daughter in tow, during the Salem witch trials.
There are characters to love and hate, adventures, danger, the arts of witchcraft, and love.
This is all the background I’m going to give on the story.
I think most will very much like, if not love this story.
You do not need to have read any previous written books in the series, it just lets you know how it all started.
Enjoy!

Huge thanks to Netgalley and Simon & Schuster for this ARC!

Magic Lessons tells a story of where the Owens bloodline begins. Maria, abandoned at birth in a snowy field, is taken in by Hannah Owens. Hannah teaches Maria the "nameless art."
Lessons:
Be grateful to who you come from and what they teach you.
Love will take you by surprise. It may make you happy but it may also disappoint you.
Never depend on others. Protect those closest to you.
Know who you are, and what you are.

The story continues through Maria's life and that of her daughter, Faith. Above all, the story is about love and life, and what is worth sacrificing, and what is worth trying to break a curse.

Reading this book - really anything by Alice Hoffman - is true escapism. The Owens women cast a spell over your literary heart, making you want to believe in magic. I will never stop recommending this. Thank you Alice Hoffman for once again writing something worth loving!