Magic Lessons is a celebration of life and love and a showcase of Alice Hoffman’s masterful storytelling. And it’s here that she learns the rules of magic and the lesson that she will carry with her for the rest of her life. Here she invokes the curse that will haunt her family. When Maria is abandoned by the man who has declared his love for her, she follows him to Salem, Massachusetts. It is here that she learns her first important lesson: Always love someone who will love you back. Under the care of Hannah Owens, Maria learns about the “Nameless Arts.” Hannah recognizes that Maria has a gift and she teaches the girl all she knows. Where does the story of the Owens bloodline begin? With Maria Owens, in the 1600s, when she’s abandoned in a snowy field in rural England as a baby. I did some research and came across a cookie recipe that I ultimately altered to create these Courage Tea Cookies.įirst, I creamed together butter and two sugars.In an unforgettable novel that traces a centuries-old curse to its source, beloved author Alice Hoffman unveils the story of Maria Owens, accused of witchcraft in Salem, and matriarch of a line of the amazing Owens women and men featured in Practical Magic and The Rules of Magic. Now, I wouldn’t even know where to start making my own tea, but I decided to translate this recipe into something more my speed - a baked good. The most oft-mentioned was Courage Tea, which 'provided bravery and grit and was made of vanilla with currants and thyme.' Much of Maria’s magic is shared in the form of tea and other similar concoctions. There was actually quite a lot of food in this story, some of it echoing what I previously made to pair with Practical Magic or exactly the cake I made to go with The Rules of Magic but much of it unique to Maria’s story. I would happily read a book about every single generation of this family. Hoffman is an incredible writer, particularly around the Owens women.

I have read a few witch books this year, and this is the only one I truly loved. I don’t want to give much of it away because it just unfolded so brilliantly. It’s a story of much more than that, though there is the before and the long after. From reading the other novels, I knew going into this story that Maria casts the spell that ultimately brings death to any man who dares fall in love with an Owens woman, but it was interesting to find out how that came to be. Eventually she makes her way to Massachusetts - where the Owens women continue to reside in generations later - by following a man to Salem. Magic Lessons tells the story of Maria Owens, who is the first Owens woman, or the beginning of the Owens bloodline Hoffman writes about in all of these novels.

Magic lessons book review