Amazing ending of this wonderful series! Loved reading this one , the magic , the love you feel within the family , the emotional ties to the book of magic will be be never ending , this one will be the best of the series for sure!

If you have enjoyed learning about the lives of the Owens' women from Maria to Kylie, or even if you have seen the movie Practical Magic and have wondered what happened after happily ever after, you will enjoy The Book of Magic immensely. The Book of Magic continues the story of Sally and Gillian Owens, their aunts, Franny and Jet, and Sally's now adult daughters, Antonia and Kylie. When tragedy strikes, the Owens' women end up on a journey of discovery that will change them forever.

The Book of Magic is the fourth book in the Practical Magic series by Alice Hoffman, and the first sequel to Practical Magic. The two prequels are Magic Lessons and The Rules of Magic, which take place before the events in Practical Magic. I was so excited to be given the opportunity to review an advance reader copy that I chose to savor every bit of it completely rather than reading in a single sitting (which is what I really wanted to do). I took my time reading it, and I am so glad that I did.

Hoffman's writing completely immerses you in the story, making you feel as if you are right there with the Owens' women. You can tell the lengths she has gone to in her research to bring this beloved family's history to light. I especially loved the running theme of libraries, which have been a plot element throughout all four books. Even more so, I enjoyed the return of one of my favorite characters and getting to see their story play out.

I highly recommend The Book of Magic and all books in the Practical Magic series. Alice Hoffman is an amazing storyteller, filling each page with haunting and perceptive prose. After all this time, I think she might even have a knack for the Unnamed Art herself, for her magic is bringing characters to life.

This book is the conclusion to the practical magic series. It did a nice job ending the series. I think it could be read as a stand alone, but you will get more out of the story if you read the other books in the series first. Great fall read!

I love Alice Hoffman's books and this was no exception. Her characters are very much their own people, quirky, funny and sad.

Do you believe in magic?…

I do.

I plant lavender for luck, keep rosemary in my garden, and have been known to thrown salt over my left shoulder…

But I also believe in the magic of words.

For the fourth time Alice Hoffman has managed to have me completely spellbound reading about the Owens family!

In truth, I aspire to be somewhere between Jet and Franny as I get older. Just the right mix of caring and no-nonsense.

Like with every book in the series that has come before it, that damn deathwatch beetle has ripped my heart out once agin in THE BOOK OF MAGIC! (why Alice, whyyyyy???)

Even with that, I could not have loved the story more! It makes sense that to break a centuries long curse preventing any Owens from finding love, it may actually require the biggest act of love ever.

Thank you to Netgalley and Simon & Schuster for allowing me access to an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Make sure to mark your calendars - THE BOOK OF MAGIC hits shelves on October 5th! You can bet your fanciest pair of red boots that I’ll be running out to get myself a physical copy of the book then!

“How lucky they’d been to be raised by women who taught them what was most important in this world. Read as many books as you can. Choose courage over caution. Take time to visit libraries. Look for light in the darkness. Have faith in yourself. Know that love is what matters most.” - The Book of Magic

Alice Hoffman is there master of backstory. This can sometimes make her books slow, but it’s also what makes them beautiful. I adored the prequel Magic Lessons, and I liked Practical Magic, and I really liked this book. The beginning is a slow burn. It didn’t really grip me till I was about 45% of the way through, but that last half flew by in a blaze of beautiful prose.

“She had thought it was hard to love, but it had turned out to be easy, all you had to do was have the courage to open your heart. The future was what mattered most, whether or not it continued without her. Let there be courage. Let there be love.”

“Like calls to like, love calls to love, courage calls to courage.”

“Words floated everywhere, shimmering on the water. Words made up the world”

“The skin of the toad became itself again, more green than black, restored and made whole. That was magic; that was how they had lived their lives. How lucky they had been. Oh, beautiful world. Oh, love that never ended.”

It was just lovely. Again, I ultimately preferred Magic Lessons and perhaps it’s because it focuses so intensely on Maria. I still found myself perking up whenever she was mentioned in this book too. This story has so many characters that just when you get invested in one story line it switches. For me, that’s a trait that makes it too easy to put down because I feel like I’m starting over again, but that’s definitely a personal presence. Ultimately, the many stories makes this one book very rich but also a bit slow.

I was given this electronic ARC by NetGalley in exchange for an honest review - Thank you for this one!

As someone who devoured the first three books in the "Practical Magic" series (in chronological order, not in order of publication), I absolutely loved this obvious conclusion to the story of this family of bloodline witches. Was it neat and tidy? Yes it was. Did it give a satisfying conclusion while also tugging at the heartstrings and bidding farewell to a beloved character or two? Yes. Did it leave JUST A FEW very loose threads just in case Hoffman decides to spin this off into a completely different direction? Yes, yes it did.

Sure to be beloved by all fans of Franny, Jet, Sally and Gillian, this was a really excellent read.

This is a long one and just as dreamy as Hoffman's other books. I find her words to come off the page like a very long song. It's like being in a dream that just keeps going and sometimes it's a little disorienting. There's a lot in this one and I guess rightly so. Hoffman is tying up all the loose ends for this magical Owens family though I do think there's probably more to come still.

This is the final book in the Practical Magic series. The Owens family has always been cursed in love, it's been about 300 years of drama and sadness. All the generations are in this one as they travel far and wide to uncover the truth and try to end the curse. This is a dreamy story about mothers, daughters, siblings and the power of love.

The Book of Magic is such a powerful story. Alice Hoffman blends love, family and magic to find long lost answers to this curse surrounding love. The deathwatch beetle comes again in this book so be prepared for this magical journey.

I fell in love with the Owens families bond of strength to come together. This book was such an amazing read one that I am sure to re-read.

This is a fun book. Whimsical and magical. The plot was a bit stop and go and there was a large portion of review from the other books. I did like several part of the story and it was a good conclusion to the series.

The Owens women are cursed. They can never fall in love and if they do then terrible things happen to those they love. Kylie and Antonia have been kept in the dark about the magic that runs through their blood…just as their mother, Sally, wanted for them. She wanted them to have a normal upbringing and as normal a life as possible. Sally also knew that she would have to divulge the family secrets when one of the girls met someone they could fall in love with. When Kylie’s love that her mother doesn’t know about gets hit by a car & is in danger of dying, all the secrets come out. Kylie finds a letter that leads her to a book of spells that sends her on an adventure of danger that is her only choice to save her love. Her family doesn’t let her go it alone and follow her so she doesn’t do things will regret.
This continuation of the story of the women In the Owen lineage that are all full of magic…some accept their fate and others try to reject it. This is a story of family, strong women and love. I enjoyed this one almost as much as Magic Lessons and I loved that one!!

It took me ages to finish this book. I believe that the primary reason for my difficulty in engaging with the tale was because it tried to weave and tie off too many story threads. There was so much time dedicated to reestablishing characters and their histories that the main plot strand was nearly lost.

A thread also seemed to be left loose, perhaps for future incorporation into another project. It belonged to Lockwood. While I would have liked a clearer resolution to this matter, I absolutely loved the natural elements, bits of lore, and herbal references sprinkled throughout the rest of the work.

All in all, I am sure that many readers will enjoy revisiting the Owens family.

Oh how I love Alice Hoffman. I have loved her work and Practical Magic since I was eight years old and maybe just a little too young to watch the movie. But it has lived in my heart and mind since that day and will continue to do so.

This book was superbly written and a wonderful ending to the Owens story. Hopeful, whimsical, scary, magical, and most importantly full of love.

It has been three hundred years since a love curse was placed on the Owens family. Some women have accepted the curse and loved anyways, while others have tried to not love. Jet Owens knows she is about to die and that she isn’t the only one at risk. Three generations of the Owens family are working hard to break this curse. They must travel widely and solicit help from unlikely sources. The newest generation is learning about close-kept secrets and all of them will uncover hidden knowledge. Can they break this curse? What will need to be sacrificed along the way to open the path?

The Book of Magic is the fourth book in the Practical Magic series. These books were not written in order and it doesn’t matter if readers tackle them in publication order or storyline order, this is the final book. Hoffman has created a generational story that weaves mothers, daughters, children, and all love relationships. This series shows that love is not only needed but necessary for us as humans. A great ending, but please read the other books first.

BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR!
Alice Hoffman's Magic series takes you away to a place you never want to come home from - I haven't felt this way about a setting, the story and it's characters for a long time, it is like Harry Potter for grown ups!
I felt as if I was getting reacquainted with old friends as I read the first chapters, each character becoming fresh and new again with the exciting twist of the current generation's take on the family curse.
I totally enjoyed the recipes, potions and herbal remedies and the wisdom regarding life and especially, love.
What an exciting and wonderful book.

"Master storyteller Alice Hoffman brings us the conclusion of the Practical Magic series in a spellbinding and enchanting final Owens novel brimming with lyric beauty and vivid characters.

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."

Anyone else thinking that October should just be all things Practical Magic?

Thank you NetGalley and Simon and Shuster Books for allowing me to read a digital ARC of The Book of Magic by Alice Hoffman.

First, I read anything written by Ms. Hoffman. When I found out I was approved to read The Book of Magic, I hollered, sent a thank you to the publisher, and did a happy dance! I read Practical Magic in 1995, and fell in love with the Sally, Gillian, and the aunts. I have read every book in this series, and I must say, I did not want this novel to end. In this story the Owen’s family works together to break the curse invoked 300 years by Maria Owens. The irony is that love, which brought the Owen’s women and men so much pain, along with sacrifice breaks the curse. It was wonderful to go on this final journey with Jet, Franny, Vincent, Gillian, Sallie, Antonia, Kylie, and host of new characters. One must always go back to the beginning to find the answer.
Thank you, Mrs. Hoffman, for listening to your readers and providing prequels about this family. The Book of Magic is a magical book, filled with witticisms and emotion. This book brings a satisfying conclusion to the Practical Magic series.

I do believe “words are the most powerful magic” and “what you put out in the universe comes back three-fold.”

The first 20% was basically an info dump for those who hadn't read the other books in the series. To me this was a waste because I don't think it was done well; the backstory she gave was confusing to me at times and I have read all the other books. I don't think it added much to the understanding of new to the series readers, and it certainly did annoy me as a past series reader.

There were several continuity blips, way too many easy coincidences used to move the storyline forward, and too much of the writing felt clumsy and plodding to me. Then there was the cheesy magic...

One of the aspects of this series I have enjoyed even in Practical Magic, a book I didn't care for, is the magic was in a way believable... like your next door neighbor could be a witch in a regular world. However, in this piece of the series there were scenes that could be found in many a badly written High Fantasy tale, which take place in fictional worlds. This was profoundly disappointing for me.

Then there was the devolution into the bad drugstore paperback romance scenes which were my biggest problem with the first book, Practical Magic. After giving us two brilliant and intelligent prequels, The Rules of Magic and Magic Lessons, so much of the depth and thoughtfulness I found in those stories was stripped away.

The story did tie up the series well; giving closure to plot threads and questions about characters' futures, so I'm not sorry I took the time to read it.

3.5 stars, rounded up
I am not a fan of fantasy and I’m also not a fan of romance novels, but I am a fan of Alice Hoffman. This, the fourth book in the “Practical Magic” series, is the final one. I can’t say it worked for me as well as the previous books in the series, but I was pleased to see how it all came together.
The Owens family has been dealing with a curse for generations. Anyone that a family member falls in love with, comes to harm. Finally, as the love interest of Kylie lies in a coma, she seeks to break the curse. This involves walking on the dark side of witchcraft. And in an effort to help, other members of the family travel behind her. The youngest generation were unaware of their heritage. The middle generation had tried to ignore their heritage. The older generation were the last ones to embrace who they were.
Hoffman has created characters that I care about and want to see them finally be able to love openly and freely. Each character was fully developed and each faces some form of self realization.
The theme of the book is basic, but not trivial. It’s that love is what makes us fully alive and we need to be willing to risk ourselves to embrace it. “Everything worthwhile was dangerous.”
The problem was the pacing of the book was not uniform and I found it dragged at times. Also, parts were predictable. Walking on the dark side, not everyone can be trusted. But I adored the ending. Hoffman’s beautiful writing really came to the forefront then and I was highlighting phrases right and left.
My thanks to NetGalley and Simon and Schuster for an advance copy of this book.

Wow. This last installment in the enchanting Owens family series was amazing. Full of heartache, love and how far this family will go to save each other. I was mesmerized by this magical tale, saddened in many parts and happy in others. Alice Hoffman is an amazing story teller and has enchanted me with her latest gift. If you love the Owens family books, make sure you don't miss this one.