Practical Magic

by Alice Hoffman Narrated by Christina Moore

Overview

Alice Hoffman's enchanting witch's brew of suspense, romance and magic -- now a major motion picture from Warner Bros.
When the beautiful and precocious sisters Sally and Gillian Owens are orphaned at a young age, they are taken to a small Massachusetts town to be raised by their eccentric aunts, who happen to dwell in the darkest, eeriest house in town. As they become more aware of their aunts' mysterious and sometimes frightening powers -- and as their own powers begin to surface -- the sisters grow determined to escape their strange upbringing by blending into "normal" society.
But both find that they cannot elude their magic-filled past. And when trouble strikes -- in the form of a menacing backyard ghost -- the sisters must not only reunite three generations of Owens women but embrace their magic as a gift -- and their key to a future of love and passion.
Funny, haunting, and shamelessly romantic, Practical Magic is bewitching entertainment -- Alice Hoffman at her spectacular best.

Editorial Reviews

Mark Childress

Ms. Hoffman's trademark narrative voice is upbeat, breathless and rather bouncy. She creates vivid characters, she keeps things moving along, and she's not above using sleight of hand and prestidigitation to achieve her considerable effects. She plays tricks with the reader's expectations by suddenly shifting tenses or passing the point of view around the room like a football. At one brief but memorable juncture, we see things through the eyes of a magician's rabbit. -- New York Times

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

Her 11th novel is Hoffman's best since Illumination Night. Again a scrim of magic lies gently over her fictional world, in which lilacs bloom riotously in July, a lovesick boy's elbows sizzle on a diner countertop and a toad expectorates a silver ring. The real and the magical worlds are almost seamlessly mixed here, the humor is sharper than in previous books, the characters' eccentricities grow credibly out of their past experiences and the poignant lessons they learn reverberate against the reader's heartstrings, stroked by Hoffman's lyrical prose. The Owens women have been witches for several generations. Orphaned Sally and Gillian Owens, raised by their spinster aunts in a spooky old house, grow up observing desperate women buying love potions in the kitchen and vow never to commit their hearts to passion. Fate, of course, intervenes. Steady, conscientious Sally marries, has two daughters and is widowed early. Impulsive, seductive Gillian goes through three divorces before she arrives at Sally's house with a dead body in her car. Meanwhile, Sally's daughters, replicas of their mother and their aunt, experience their own sexual awakenings. The inevitability of love and the torment and bliss of men and women gripped by desire is Hoffman's theme here, and she plays those variations with a new emphasis on sex scenes-there's plenty of steamy detail and a pervasive use of the f-word. The dialogue is always on target, particularly the squabbling between siblings, and, as usual, weather plays a portentous role. Readers will relish this magical tale. BOMC main selection.

School Library Journal

YA-Practical Magic is vintage Hoffman. It is the story of how three generations of New England women deal with the irresistible force of love. Sisters Sally and Gillian are as different as night and day; Antonia and Kylie are Sally's teenage daughters. All are caught in passion's snare in spite of their vigilance against it or disbelief in its power. Hovering in the background are the girls' great-aunties, Frances and Jet, who are really barely disguised witches. Using their heritage of practical magic-that is, magic that will get you out of trouble-each of the younger women deals with whatever love delivers, good and bad. YAs will be charmed by Hoffman's warm, mesmerizing narrative. The book is reminiscent in places of Gwendolyn Brooks's tiny jewel of a poem, ``Sadie and Maud,'' and even more of Sue Miller's poignant novel, For Love (HarperCollins, 1993). But even as Hoffman agrees with Brooks and Miller that ``grief is everywhere,'' she administers that sweet antidote, a happy ending. Her women are possessed by love, and transformed.-Marya Fitzgerald, R.E. Lee High School, Springfield, VA

Donna Seaman

agic, fantasy, and full-tilt love-at-first-sight have figured in all of Hoffman's sexy, funny, and endearing novels, but they blossom as they never have before in her latest effort, a tale about four generations of Massachusetts sisters. The unusual Owens women are beautiful, with unforgettable pond-gray eyes; a blood-deep knowledge of the supernatural power of plants, animals, and storms; and pronounced sensitivity to love and evil. Sally, dark and practical, and Gillian, blond and wild, go to live with their peculiar and reclusive aunts after the death of their parents. Taunted and feared by the town's children, they long for an ordinary life far from their quirky aunts and their mysterious garden and the desperate, lovesick women who appear at their door after dark. Gillian heads for the desert and the company of dangerous men, while Sally finds love and bliss only to have her heart shattered. She flees from the scene of her tragedy with her two young daughters, works hard to achieve normalcy, and almost succeeds, but Gillian appears with a dead man in her car and the entire world reels. In Hoffman's universe, all boundaries between inner and outer realms are erased. Fear brings whipping winds, a malevolent spirit causes lilac bushes to achieve monstrous proportions, and love turns the air sweet and golden, melts butter, and makes everyone giddy. Hoffman has created a cosmic romance leavened with just the right touch of pragmatism and humor.

From the Publisher

Praise for Practical Magic

“A beautiful, moving book about the power of love and the desires of the heart.”—Denver Post

“Charmingly told, and a good deal of fun.”—The New York Times Book Review

“One of her most lyrical works...Hoffman is at her best.”—San Francisco Chronicle Book Review

“Written with a light hand and rhythm...Practical Magic has the pace of a fairy tale but with the impact of accomplished fiction.”—People

“A sweet, sweet story that like the best fairy tales says more than at first it seems to.”—New York Daily News

“[Hoffman] has proved once again her potency as a storyteller, combining the mundane with the fantastic in a totally engaging way.”—The Orlando Sentinel

“Hoffman's writing has plenty of power. Her best sentences are like incantations—they won't let you get away.”—Kirkus Reviews

“Witches and ghosts, spells and sleight-of-hand weave a fanciful atmospehere in Alice Hoffman's tender comedy about clairvoyance, spells, and family ties.”—The Miami Herald

“A cosmic romance leavened with just the right touch of pragmatism and humor.”—Booklist
 

APR/MAY 00 - AudioFile

With faultless diction, a storyteller’s sense of pacing, and a perfect understanding of the author’s words, narrator Christina Moore makes this book come alive. Her voice is low, with a hint of nasal twang, and she uses it to recreate the surreal atmosphere so wonderfully described in the text. Moore does not create overt characters; she subtly separates conversations from descriptive passages. This ensures that the book flows and retains the integrity of Hoffman’s tone. Ostensibly the story of two sisters reared by their magic-practicing aunts, the book is also a gentle meditation on love, compassion and human fears. Moore weaves these themes into a wonderful listening experience. R.I.G. © AudioFile 2000, Portland, Maine

Product Details

BN ID:	2940171089597
Publisher:	Simon & Schuster
Publication date:	11/06/2012
Series:	Practical Magic Series , #3
Edition description:	Unabridged
Sales rank:	549,621

Read an Excerpt

For more than two hundred years, the Owens women have been blamed for everything that has gone wrong in town. If a damp spring arrived, if cows in the pasture gave milk that was runny with blood, if a colt died of colic or a baby was born with a red birthmark stamped onto his cheek, everyone believed that fate must have been twisted, at least a little, by those women over on Magnolia Street. It didn’t matter what the problem was—lightning, or locusts, or a death by drowning. It didn’t matter if the situation could be explained by logic, or science, or plain bad luck. As soon as there was a hint of trouble or the slightest misfortune, people began pointing their fingers and placing blame. Before long they’d convinced themselves that it wasn’t safe to walk past the Owens house after dark, and only the most foolish neighbors would dare to peer over the black wrought-iron fence that circled the yard like a snake.
(Continues…)

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Excerpted from "Practical Magic"
by .
Copyright © 2003 Alice Hoffman.
Excerpted by permission of Penguin Publishing Group.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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