I would first like to thank NetGalley for allowing me to read this phenomenal book! I think this novel is her best since the Practical Magic series. This story is such a beautiful testament to the love between a mother and child. I also really enjoyed the connection to The Scarlet Letter and the historical aspects. This book helped to revive me out of a reading slump. A perfection transition for a fall cozy read!

Alice Hoffman does it again with this enchanting tale. Alice Hoffman knows how to write magical realism.

The story is broken up into three parts, I loved this it was literally like getting three books in one. I love the connection to The Scarlett Letter. Alice also gives much attention to the rights of women to their bodies and the importance of not banning books.

I didn’t realize what the book was about when I picked it up, I just saw Alice Hoffman and I knew I wanted to read it. The book is broken up into three parts - first Ivy and Mia’s story. Ivy is a young unwed mother who falls into a cult run by the man who will also becomes her abusive husband (and Mia’’s “father”). As her daughter Mia grows up she is more and more constrained and begins to rebel against the harsh rules of the “community”- especially the one that forbids reading and books. Mia sneaks into the town library and befriends the librarian. She falls in love with literature and discovers the Scarlet Letter.

The second part of the novel has Mia travel to the past where Nathaniel Hawthorne is a young struggling writer and he and Mia meet and fall in love. The third part of the novel is a blending of present and past. I don’t want to give too much away.

The novel (in my opinion) is Hoffman’s reaction to what is presently happening in our society with women’s loss of bodily autonomy and the banning of books in certain communities.

I loved the first and third parts of the book, the second was a little slow for me. The descriptions of Ivy and Mia’s life in the cult immediately drew me into the novel as well as Mia’s relationship with the two librarians who saved her. The novel did an excellent job showing the reader the importance of literature in society. Women play a central role in the book and flowing through past and present, how women, often are made into second class citizens and how they need to regain their power (and how sometimes they do in unconventional ways). I love how Alice Hoffman’s books are so different from each other and will always pick them up as they are released.

This is a 4.25 rating for me.

thank you NetGalley and Atria books for the opportunity to review

The Invisible Hour by Alice Hoffman
Rating: 3.5 stars
Pub Date: 8/15

If Alice Hoffman writes it, I’m going to read it. I love her writing style and the magic she infuses into her stories. Her Practical Magic series is one of my all-time favorites, and I was excited to read this new book! And while there are many things to love about this one, ultimately, it wasn’t my favorite.

The book is broken up into three parts, and during part one, we meet Ivy, a sixteen-year-old girl who gets caught up in a cult after finding herself pregnant with nowhere else to go. The second and third parts tell the story of Ivy’s daughter Mia and her life in the cult and after she leaves it.

I loved the parts of this story surrounding Ivy, Mia, and the cult they’re involved with, and I was convinced this would be a five-star read during that part of the book. The love between a mother and daughter, cult behavior, and how books can ultimately change a person’s life were all themes that I was enthusiastically enjoying.

Then we got to the time travel part of the story, and it felt like I was reading a different book altogether. Gone were the beautiful prose and exciting plot, and in their place was a slower and less interesting story about Nathaniel Hawthorne’s life before he wrote The Scarlett Letter and what happens when Mia enters his orbit. This part of the story dragged for me, and the ending was too ambiguous and left a lot of questions behind.

I can appreciate what Hoffman was trying to do here, and I usually love any magical realism. This was still a good, quick read I would recommend to anyone who might enjoy a cultish time-travel story. Thank you so much to NetGalley and Atria Books for my early copy to read and review!

I usually love Alice Hoffman's novels but this one was just fine. A little too ridiculous for me and the writing was a bit too flowery.

I’m not an Alice Hoffman Stan, but I tend to love her books. I love the way she describes things: her work is like reading a painting and The Invisible Hour is no acceptation. I love the way she weaves touches of magic into a beautiful reality and seamlessly jumps through time periods while keeping continuity and sense. This one specifically has a time traveling aspect and, instead of taking pains to meticulously explain the plausibility, Hoffman simply makes time travel make perfect sense and seem like such an obvious addition to the story.
I loved Mia and her strength and, truly, all the strong women portrayed in this book. Hoffman does women so well.
I love the cult aspect- very on trend for what’s of interest these days.
This is an excellent book for fall with a gorgeous cover. I’d definitely recommend it for its feminist feels and it’s magical realism.

4.5⭐️
Alice Hoffman is, and always has been, my favorite author. Her writing was as beautiful as ever and the fantastical elements were so beautifully interwoven with reality. For the first half of the book, set in the Community, I was unable to put it down. The latter half left me a bit wanting - the central romance felt glossed over and told rather than showed. And in a book on the shorter side, I really wish some extra space would’ve been given to showing that romance happening, to heighten the stakes. So while I didn’t really feel invested in the things happening in 1837, I was so moved by the modern day story that the book overall was amazing for me.

I am a huge fan of Alice's books and was so excited to get approve for an ARC of The Invisible Hour. You can read how much she loves books in this story and as a fellow book lover I really appreciated it. I love how she used her moms story as reference for this amazing book also. This book was so good!

As usual the author Alice Hoffman does not disappoint. The story draws the reader in from the chapter until the end. The book shows how the power of books can change your life. The stories and words from an author can affect people in many different ways.

I thought the first half of the book was so good. I loved hearing Ivy and Mia's story. The second half felt like a completely different book. I have a hard time combining them in my mind. As always, I think Alice Hoffman's writing was beautiful.

A story for those who are into stories about mother-daughter relationships, time-travel romance and lovers of poetry.

Alice Hoffman did it again ✨

overview-

Mia, born in a cult where books are deemed evil, decides she can’t live this way anymore. After almost giving up on her life, feeling she’ll never escape her community, she finds salvation in the story of the Scarlett Letter.

review-

5 ⭐️

I had no idea I would love this book so so much. I’ve read from Alice Hoffman before, my previous favorite being The Rules of Magic, but I was expecting how completely encompassing this story would be. I could not look away from the pages, not one second was I bored.

Mia’s story was something any girl can relate to. Reading her story made me think about the little things in life to appreciate, like picking up any book and escaping into a story.

This book captured my heart, I was so happy to get to read an ARC of this.

This enchanting novel from Alice Hoffman was incredible. I almost feel like I was given two books in one, but tied together in such a magical way.
Mia grows up on a commune, where she has a special connection to her mother even though the community believes that their children belong to everyone. The love between a mother and daughter cannot be held back by a rule, and we learn just how much Ivy loved her baby girl.

This book actually inspired me to go read The Scarlet Letter again for the first time since high school. I full expect I will get a lot more from it after having this other perspective in my mind.

I was positively enchanted by the world Alice Hoffman created in her latest novel, "The Invisible Hour." As with my other favorite books by this author, including the "Practical Magic" series and "The World That We Knew," I immediately became immersed in the story from the very first page. I loved the strong women characters who did what they had to do to both survive and create a better life for their daughters; characters who, though this novel contained fantasy elements and time travel, faced real-life issues that are highly relevant to women today. The connections to "The Scarlet Letter" and to Nathaniel Hawthorne's life were very well-done and, because "The Scarlet Letter" is one of my all-time favorite books, made this a must-read for me. This beautiful book is an ode to the magic of books and how a reader's life can be forever altered by the words on a page. This book has cemented Alice Hoffman as one of my favorite modern authors and I eagerly await her next work.

Many thanks to NetGalley, Atria Books, and Alice Hoffman for the privilege of reading an advanced copy of this extraordinary book! Five stars!

This was my first book by Alice Hoffman and I went in blind. I’d heard great things about Hoffman’s other novels, including Practical Magic and Magic Lessons, and was looking forward to her gift of writing magical realism.

At a short 272 pages, this book can really be split into two parts. The first part takes place in present time and tells the story of Ivy and Mia and their time in the Community and then Mia’s life after escaping. I thoroughly enjoyed the first half of the book and could have read and enjoyed reading about Mia’s life in the present for much longer.

I enjoyed the glimpse into life living in a cult and Mia’s discovery of the joy of books. The characters that supported her were charming and the leader of the cult made a fantastic villain that really connected the first part of the book with the second half.

In the second part, Mia travels through time and lives in the time of Nathaniel Hawthorne, meeting the author, falling in love, and inspiring her beloved book, The Scarlet Letter. This second part seemed much slower and less fulfilling and gripping than the first part. I don’t have a ton of experience with magical realism, so maybe it isn’t my thing, but I didn’t quite understand how Mia traveled through time.

I thought the idea of Mia’s time travel was very clever in that her present-day life inspired the story that allowed her to survive. The idea behind the second half was sound, in my opinion, but the execution fell flat.

Alice Hoffnam’s writing style is dreamy and she does a great job of getting emotions of the characters across to the readers. While this particular book wasn’t my favorite, I am eager to see what else Hoffman has to offer in her other novels.

I was engaged in this book as soon as I picked it up. I loved the setting, the writing, and the tone!

I thought for sure it was setting itself up for a five-star read. However, it lost me about 2/3 of the way through when she started time traveling. I was a bit disappointed that her journey of self-discovery after her traumatic past revolved around a man. Womp womp. I did think the aspects of changing the past (when the book started disappearing, etc.) were interesting. But I think I would have liked it more had she stayed primarily in present day and reclaimed her power independently..

4/5

CONTENT WARNING: death of a parent, grief, abuse, violence, death, suicidal ideation, stalking, terminal illness

I have yet to find an Alice Hoffman book that I haven’t loved, and this one is no exception. Hoffman has this incredible way of infusing her books with magical realism and making it so easy for her readers to suspend belief that I’ve become a huge fan despite my tendency to dislike magical realism in general with a few exceptions.

This story is basically a love letter to books, although it does touch on other important themes as well. Have you ever read a book and just seen yourself in it? The first time this happened to me was an incredibly powerful moment, and my experience pales in comparison to that of Mia’s in this book. But this line just stood out to me, and while I rarely quote ARCs in my reviews, I couldn’t help but use this quote because it stood out to me:

“Sometimes when you read a book it’s as if you were reading the story of your own life.”

First we hear the story of Ivy, Mia’s mother. When she finds herself pregnant and alone, she finds her way to what seems like an idyllic group of people in western Massachusetts known as the Community. And while it initially seems perfect, the cracks show before long and it’s quickly revealed to be a cult led by a charismatic man named Joel. In the Community, they aren’t allowed to talk to anyone on the outside, they can’t read any books, watch TV, listen to the radio, get married without Joel’s approval, and the children are raised communally without contact from their parents, and they aren’t allowed to show emotions. Infractions are punished harshly. Despite all of this, Ivy finds ways to sneak time alone with Mia, and let her know how much she loves her or tell her stories.

Mia grows up knowing that life in the Community is not a sustainable way of life for her. After discovering a world of escape in her local library, she has a hard time not going back. She tentatively forges a bond with the librarian, and discovers the books that create massive change in her life. And on the day that she decides to end her life, she finds a book that seems to tell the story of her mother’s life. Instead of killing herself, she decides that she wants more from life than what the Community has to offer.

Escaping the Community is both easier than she expects and harder. The way she was brought up isn’t so simple to leave behind, and she finds herself always looking over her shoulder, even after building a fulfilling life on the outside. And when she finds herself magically brought back in time, she encounters an author that she’s already fallen in love with and has to find a balance between building a bond between Nathaniel Hawthorne and not changing anything that would impact that future.

This story brings up some older themes that have become relevant again today, principally women having bodily autonomy. Ivy’s limited choices are what started the journey in this story in the first place—she became pregnant out of wedlock at a time when this was shameful and unacceptable, so her only options were to give the baby up for adoption or to leave and try to find somewhere she can be a single mother and accepted for that. Book banning also plays a role in the story, and there’s definitely a lesson to be learned here: it’s always the despotic people in charge who want to ban the books. There’s a line in the story that said something about how once Mia went into the library, Joel wasn’t able to control her anymore. This is something that we can also apply to our own society today.

Overall, this is a fantastic story that couldn’t have been done as wonderfully in anyone else’s hands. Hoffman is a true master of magical realism, and this story comes across as a perfect example of magical realism done well. This is clearly a love letter to books, and I love how she incorporated present day issues to this moving story. It’s one not to miss, just like all of the other Hoffman books I’ve read, so she’s clearly an auto-buy author for me.

“In a place where books were banned there could be no personal freedom, no hope, and no dreams for the future. “

“Turn someone into a reader and you turn the world around.”

Mia is struggling with the life she has been handed of living in the community. When she finds the love of books, an entirely new world opens up for her, but reading is strictly banned in the community. By hiding her library trips and reading in secret, Mia learns that reading can transport you a millions of different places…

You all know I love me a cult book, and this one was no different. I really enjoyed what a strong character Mia was, and how she never backed down from Joel. I also really enjoyed the magical realism and the book within a book aspect of this one.

Alice Hoffman is a phenomenal writer. She brings to her her craft, foresight, an abundance of wisdom, concern for humankind and loving beautiful prose that jumps off the page right into the reader’s soul. In The Invisible Hour she poignantly tells at the onset that a book by itself is nothing without a reader. And so begins a literary journey based upon Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter, written at a time when the Salem witch trials were still a raw memory and when women were thought to be subservient to men and were tainted by Eve’s preposterous “ original sin. “
As it turns out, 2023 is a year in which women in the United States, once again, after a long battle for equality , find themselves battered by a puritanical Supreme Court. What perfect timing for Alice Hoffman to write a book that highlights how our modern crisis reflects the archaic misogyny of of the past.
Mia Jacob lives in the Community, a commune run by a self absorbed tyrant, Joel Davis, who is her father of record. Mia receives no privileges. In fact, no child in the Community lives in a family household, but are reared communally. Mia is unhappy and takes long forbidden walks to the town of Blackwell, in the Berkshires, where she discovers a library filled with books. The librarian fulfills Mia’s need to expand her mind through reading. Mia’s mother, Ivy, has encouraged her daughter to read in secret. They have a strong mother/ daughter bond.
At a point in the book where Mia’s life becomes unbearable, the book shifts time frames and through time travel brings Mia to the place where she can meet and fall in love with, the author she adores, Nathaniel Hawthorne.
I cannot praise this book enough. It is important, compelling, and leaves a message that cannot be overlooked. Kudos to Alice Hoffman. Many thanks to NetGalley and Simon and Schuster for gifting me an ARC in return for my honest review. Publication is soon- August 17, 2023.

I feel like this was too broadly written which made it too scattered to fully invest in any one character or storyline. I felt so thrown by following the mom first and then the daughter and whole cult situation and then the mom dies and the daughters books get burned and at 35% she hadn't even time travelled yet.
I appreciate the opportunity for the ARC