Play Book Tag discussion

The Book Of Magic – Alice Hoffman
Book on CD performed by Jennifer Ehle
3.5***

This is the fourth book Hoffman has written about the Owens family witches, and also the fourth as far as chronology of the family story is concerned. However, it’s listed as “Series # 2, because the second and third books she wrote were prequels to the first, Practical Magic .

I came late to the Hoffman fan club. I’m not terribly interested in reading about witches and magic, and I had seen the movie of Practical Magic, which I thought was terrible. But I finally read that first in the series last year and I was pleasantly surprised by how much I like it. So here I am again.

The focus of the plot in this work is the search for a way to break the family curse, and the action covers two continents. What I really like about the books is the relationships between the generations of women, though I really appreciated the storyline exploring Franny and Jet’s brother, Vincent.

Hoffman moves back and forth between various characters, exploring their stories and actions, which all come together in a satisfying conclusion. She does this quite well, keeping the story flowing and the reader turning pages. It’s not great literature, but it is entertaining.

Jennifer Ehle (yes, Elizabeth Bennett in the hit A&E Pride and Prejudice miniseries) does a marvelous job of performing the audiobook version. There are a lot of characters here: male, female, young, old, Americans, British, French. And Ehle handles the multitude with skill. Brava!




LINK to my review

NOTE: 1 person has tagged this "classics" so I'm including it in this folder. Go figure ...

Good for Alice that somebody considers this book, or the set of four to be classic. That surprises me far more than Harry Potter, outlander, or other such things we now consider to be our modern day classics.