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Magic Lessons (Practical Magic, #0.1)

Alice Hoffman

Start date: November 1, 2020

Finish date: November 30, 2020

Discussion: Buddy Reads

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Oct 25, 2020 Brina rated it really liked it

Shelves: magical-realism, boston, historical-fiction, witches, family-saga

Every Saga has a Beginning

Always throw spilled salt over your left shoulder. Keep Rosemary by your garden gate. Add pepper to your mashed potatoes. Plant roses and lavender, for luck. Fall in love whenever you can. These are some of the Owens rules of magic, a family that I fell in love with from the time I read the first installment of their family history in Practical Magic. A family of bloodline witches that has passed their magic from mother to daughter all the way to present day, the Owens Every Saga has a Beginning

Always throw spilled salt over your left shoulder. Keep Rosemary by your garden gate. Add pepper to your mashed potatoes. Plant roses and lavender, for luck. Fall in love whenever you can. These are some of the Owens rules of magic, a family that I fell in love with from the time I read the first installment of their family history in Practical Magic. A family of bloodline witches that has passed their magic from mother to daughter all the way to present day, the Owens women are a fictional example that witchcraft and the love of sisterhood can exist in modern times. Before we readers arrive at the 21st century existence of Kylie and Antonia Owens and even before we know the story of their mother Sally and aunt Gillian as well as their aunts Franny and Jet, the Owens family history had to begin somewhere in time. That somewhere is the story of their infamous ancestor Maria Owens, but even Maria needs to come from somewhere and someone who started the family bloodline. When I found out that the beginning to the Owens saga would be published in 2020, I was giddy with excitement. Finally I would find out the origins of the rules of Owens magic that I have grown to love. A group of us celebrated the publication of Magic Lessons by first rereading Practical Magic and Rules of Magic, books I savored even more with new readings. Those appetizers lead to Magic Lessons, a book that was every bit worth the hype.

Maria Owens was abandoned by her birth mother Rebecca and found by Hannah Owens in the moors of England in the 1660s. Hannah is a bloodline witch, evident by a birthmark on her wrist. These marks could be in the form of a star, moon, or other astral object that pick out the person as someone special, in this case a witch. Hannah noticed a birthmark on Maria as well, yet kept this information secret, at least at first, and decided to raise the girl as her own. Readers find out that Hannah lives in the woods and has a gift for using herbs to treat the ailments of everyday life. We also find out that witches survived the Black Plague, something relevant in today’s world, because they understood how to use these herbs to cure both diseases and other afflictions. Hannah could tell that Maria was special from the time she was a young girl, both from the birthmark and that a familiar chose her from the time she was a baby. Caden the crow would follow Maria across oceans and remain loyal to her even when she was accused of the highest forms of witchcraft once she arrived in Salem; however, that came later. Witchcraft in England was already under fire when Maria was coming of age, and Hannah was determined that she should have a different fate, in a country where all people could be open regardless of their religion, culture, or lot in life. Fate would take Maria across the Atlantic Ocean where she would begin her young adult life on the island of Curaçao.

A reader familiar with Hoffman’s work would know that Curaçao is that setting for her luscious book The Marriage of Opposites. The island tolerated all religions, yet, unfortunately did not condone witchcraft. The practice was considered backward because of the black magic that had come from the island’s inhabitants of African descent. Yet, this is the environment that Maria finds herself in, and she learns the properties of the native herbs and spices including the fabled magnolia tree, which she adds to her growing knowledge of magic, and is eventually passed down to all Owens women in her grimoire. It is in Curaçao that Maria encounters John Hathorne and becomes pregnant by him. This is not love, only a passing moment in time, yet it was enough for Maria to use Hathorne as an example to begin the famous Owens’ curse: that no Owens woman should ever fall in love because it is dangerous considering where the women come from. What Maria had with John Hathorne was not love; yet, at a tender age, she had not yet learned to distinguish true love from the act of intimacy, something generations of Owens women would have to live with for over 300 years. As an older teenager, however, Maria Owens believed that John Hathorne was the one, and her journey would next take her to the fledgling Massachusetts Bay Colony, where it was dangerous to be a witch.

Salem, 1692 needs no introduction, yet this is the environment where Maria Owens found herself upon arrival in Massachusetts, where she was determined to find John Hathorne and introduce him to his infant daughter Faith. On the voyage to America, Maria meets Samuel Dias and his father Abraham, merchants who survived the death of the rest of their family in post-inquisition Spain that decided to make a living sailing the world. The Dias’ family makes their home base in provincial Manhattan that is still run by the Dutch, so that they can attend the Sephardic Shearith Israel synagogue. Abraham has chosen in his older age to keep his feet on land, but Samuel still has the urge to travel the seas, and he is instantly smitten with both Maria and Faith, who calls him gaga for both goat and for father. Maria is conflicted because she believes what she had with John Hathorne was love, yet from the prose, it is apparent from the first sentences that her fate lie with Samuel Dias, a man with a colorful past. As one who had studied converso history for years, I found the sections with the Dias men to be fascinating. The fact that the Dias’ were persecuted for their religion and that the Owens’ women were persecuted for witchcraft should have be a sign that fate was bringing the two together. Like the story of Franny and Haylin three hundred years later, it would take Maria Owens nearly a lifetime for her fate to convene with a positive outcome.

As expected from reading the other installments of the Owens women, Maria Owens is prosecuted by none other than John Hathorne in the early days of the Salem Witch Trials. She lived in a cabin in the woods and saw women to give them potions for love and other afflictions and was actually lauded by many of these women who saw her as a powerful woman, knowledgeable in properties of herbs and medicine. There was the fragment of the population who were fearful of witchcraft even if a witch never did anything damaging; yet, these were the rumors that were passed down for generations down to the time when Franny and Jet called Maria’s house their home. All of this and other tribulations damaged Faith’s psyche, and her story that included the dark side of magic brought zest to this story. Franny and Jet have always had courage even when discussing Maria, but never mentioned Faith and her dabbling in black magic. It is clear that their line came from elsewhere, with Sally who was always labeled as a good girl, hence the name of the book practical magic, which clearly derived from her character. Maria would survive the trials or there would be no Owens family. Her journeys would take her back to New York and Samuel Dias and a community where witchcraft was tolerated. The scenes in Manhattan and rural Brooklyn were a joy to read, knowing that today they are among the busiest cities in the world. It is little wonder to me that generations of Owenses would want to call the city home despite the fact that Salem and its rich history is also full of witchcraft, both good and bad.

Eventually, Maria has another daughter named Hannah Reina and the Owens line continues sans black magic. With so many new Owens female characters, the possibility for new books linking the generations is endless. Knowing that Maria cursed her descendants and that the curse is finally broken three hundred years later might take a little fun out of reading about Owens’ women in different points in time. It is tantalizing to think where the family traveled between Maria’s time and that of Franny and Jet. What major events did they experience? How were witches treated in society at different points in time? Every saga has a beginning, and for the Owens family, that starting point is with Maria Owens. Her tale here in Magic Lessons was worth the hype and the wait and hopefully one day, a generation of Owens women emerges that will finally end her curse once and for all. After all, that is part of Maria’s rules of magic in her grimoire that has been passed down from one Owens woman to the next for centuries.

✨ 4.5 stars ✨in top ten for the year 🔮 🧙‍♀️ 🧹 ...more

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Jun 12, 2020 debbicat *made of stardust* rated it it was amazing

Shelves: netgalley, arc, buddy-read, 2020, ma

This is the story of Maria Owens and Faith, her daughter. It is the prequel to the Practical Magic books, which I loved so much! Finally, we know how the Owens women became so powerful and feared. What a story!

I first saw Practical Magic when it came out as a movie with Sanda Bullock and Nicole Kidman. I was mesmerized and enchanted. I bought the soundtrack. I sang along to my favorite white witch, Stevie Nicks, rock goddess, Gold Dust Woman. I loved everything about the movie. I owned the CD a This is the story of Maria Owens and Faith, her daughter. It is the prequel to the Practical Magic books, which I loved so much! Finally, we know how the Owens women became so powerful and feared. What a story!

I first saw Practical Magic when it came out as a movie with Sanda Bullock and Nicole Kidman. I was mesmerized and enchanted. I bought the soundtrack. I sang along to my favorite white witch, Stevie Nicks, rock goddess, Gold Dust Woman. I loved everything about the movie. I owned the CD and watched it more than a few times. It was, well, magic. I did not know who Alice Hoffman was.

Years later, I have found goodreads....I am a NetGalley reader; and I begin seeing Rules of Magic coming out on my news feed. I request in and I get it instantly. I am giddy! I loved that book. I loved knowing about the sisters and their backstory. The aunts that danced around the kitchen making margaritas and singing "lime in the coconut". The book was dark but positive too. It was a feel good for me. I did go back and read Practical Magic, needing to know the whole story as Hoffman wrote it. In some ways, I enjoyed the movie more tho. Maybe it was just so familiar. And beautiful.

So..fast forward and now I get an invite to read this one...Magic Lessons. Heck yeah!!! I must know everything about this family. The beginnings. The makings of these strong women. I was soooooo excited. I read it right away. I want to say here tho, it was very dark. Much darker (for me) than the other two books. I was struggling at the beginning. But I was sooooo glad when Maria did not die when I thought she might. I kept on. I had to know what happened and how she survived against all odds. The ending I was hoping for came. No spoiler. It might not be the ending you want. It was right. There are a lot of troubling scenes. Deaths I wish had not occurred.

It is so well written I can't find any fault with the author. The story is heavy. A lot of sadness. But, I was so invested with the characters of Faith and Maria. I cared a great deal about what happened to them. I wanted to hurt those that hurt them.

This is one of my favorite and most memorable reads of 2020. Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for a digital copy to read for review. I highly recommend it! ...more

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Oct 08, 2021 Maureen rated it really liked it · review of another edition

I loved reading this series. This is the Prequel to Practical Magic. I enjoyed reading the backstory of the Owens Family. It is the story of Hannah, Maria and Faith Owens and the dreaded family curse.
It was a bit slow moving but the history of with craft was very interesting.
An enjoyable read.

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Nov 16, 2020 Tasha rated it really liked it

Shelves: netgalley

This was a wonderfully engaging and interesting look back at the Owens family history. The writing was smooth and the story very engaging, loved that it went back so far to the Salem Witch Trials (and even further back actually). I read this last after reading Practical Magic and The Rules of Magic but it can certainly be read as a stand alone as well. Reading this first would have given me a forward timeline, instead I read it going backward into history but either way works. Of the 3 this was ...more

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Nov 19, 2020 Ƹ̴Ӂ̴Ʒ Jenn Ƹ̴Ӂ̴Ʒ Schu rated it liked it

Shelves: magic-realism

I have enjoyed this series to Practical Magic.
An entertaining read, enjoyed reading about the herbs and treatments for different ailments of the era. The storyline with the witch trials was well constructed into the story line but it's not a fav of mine since I've read about witch trials quite a bit.
Overall an interesting story with mostly likeable characters.
3.5 stars ...more

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Sep 30, 2022 Sarah Brown rated it really liked it

'There are none who can fight as fiercely as a mother and a daughter, and none who can forgive more completely.' - Alice Hoffman

There are so many great quotes in this book. Really loved the message about using the gifts you were give and everything you put out into the world will come back to (whether good or bad). ...more

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