Book Club September Pick: Practical Magic by Alice Hoffman

Dear Readers, 

Our Book Club pick for September is all about kicking off the holiday reading season! While all things pumpkin spice have made their debut, fall and Halloween decorations are slowly replacing school supplies in store displays, and Halloween movies are starting to play at home, it is time to get our witchy on. (I write this while wearing my “It’s all just a bunch of hocus pocus” t-shirt.) The goal, beyond reading what is hopefully a wonderful book, is to add a little magic, love and spookiness in our bookish world by reading Practical Magic by Alice Hoffman.

To further add seasonal magic, especially if you are locked indoors from the west coast fires, I challenge you to not only read the book but then to find and watch the movie Practical Magic. I LOVE the movie! I can’t imagine the book being better or different in the best way but, we will see! It may be the book is the exception to the rule “the book was better”. Let me know what you think!

As I was creating this post, Goodreads showed that there are two other books about the Owen’s women and the curse they deal with in Practical Magic. Wahoo! One comes out in October this year! Let’s get reading!  

Oh! And one last thing before I close. I wanted to share some Practical Magic advice for your everyday:    

 "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."

Author Shout Out & Recommendation: Sarah J Maas!!!!

I have fallen absolutely in love with Sarah J. Maas. Her latest book release and new series, House of Earth and Blood, Crescent City series, was recommended to me. I started it, I then devoured it and was left immediate wanting more!!!! While waiting for the next in that series to come out, I decided to explore some of Maas’s other series. I started reading her other adult series A Court of Thorns and Roses. Recommendation: Don’t do what I did and buy the books individually for this series. If you like, or think you will like Maas at all, just buy the boxed sets (or all available books). You won’t have to do what I did and wait impatiently for the next book to arrive, or even gamble with your anxiety level it might be delivered late!

Maas creates a magical world (in each of the two series I have read so far) with details, language, history, sounds, smells, sights, characters and descriptions that left me feeling like I fell into the story, almost shadowing the characters, feeling their feelings… all the beautiful lovely things a great book and author are supposed to deliver and evoke. There is love, betrayal, romance, history, language, magic, darkness and light, fae and mortals, war time and peace. Maas has created characters who are strong but she also allows the supporting charact
ers to shine, plot, and weave a more in depth plot than many books I have read in recent history. She made me want to invest in not just the main characters plot twists, but also those around them.

Next up is the Throne of Glass series. The question is: do I wait until February 2021 to start it or jump in now. January 2021 is the release of the next in series book for A Court of Thorns and Roses. Currently, I know these characters and their world, I just caught up with them, reading about them in over 1900 beautifully written pages. Do I mix the characters and worlds? Reread the series prior to reading the newest when it is published so it won’t matter? Wait? I just can’t decide right now while still digesting all that I have learned of Feyre’s world and wanting more of the Crescent City series to hurry up.

Luckily Sarah J. Maas, like J.K. Rowling, Stephanie Meyer, Diana Gabaldon, J.R.R. Martin, and Jane Austen, to name a few, has entered a master class of fandom that helps fill in the times of reading droughts with websites, artwork, and all kinds of lovely things dedicated to their worlds.