The Book of Magic by Alice Hoffman

 Readers who have been under the spell of the Owens family of the Practical Magic series are in luck as Alice Hoffman is bewitching readers with the final book in the series, The Book of Magic.

In her 2020 novel Magic Lessons, she outlined the centuries-old curse on the family to its source by telling the story of Maria Owens, the matriarch of the line.  The curse is on love and has continued for 300 years, but Jet Owens is about to spell out an action that will undo it as she faces her last seven days on earth.

Jet confides in her sister Franny about the deathwatch beetle now shadowing Jet. In the meantime, an accident has caused the love of one of their great-niece’s to be in a coma, an obvious playing out of the curse. Jet has left Franny a note about a book Jet found hidden in the library that will break the curse, but the book and the note have fallen into the hands of great-niece Kylie Owens by accident.

Sally, Kylie and Antonia’s mother, has long protected her daughters from the truth about their family. When she learns Kylie has fled to Europe to find out more information as she looks for a way to end the curse to save her boyfriend Gideon’s life, Sally, her sister Gillian, Aunt Franny, and Franny’s long-lost brother Vincent head first to Paris and then London to rescue Kylie from things she does not understand and help her undo the curse.

Unfortunately, reversing the 300-year-old curse will require a sacrifice: a life for a life. The path to freeing the Owens from the curse is tangled as the group enlists a professor/writer to help find Kylie in England, the home of Maria Owens three centuries ago.

Alice Hoffman has written these final two books as a response to her readers who thirsted for more. “My readers sent me back to the world of Practical Magic,” she said in an interview in the Library Journal. “I had so many letters and messages asking for more, and after writing The Rules of Magic, which takes place in the 60s and 70s, I decided to go all the way back, to the original Owens ancestor, Maria Owens. I’m always interested in how the past influences the present, who the ghosts in the nursery are, who has influenced us, even if we never knew them.” In addition to the Practical Magic series and other novels, she writes short stories. Born in New York, Hoffman lives in Boston.

My review will be posted on Goodreads starting August 20, 2021.

I would like to thank Simon & Schuster and NetGalley for providing me with an ARC in return for an objective review.