Showing results by author "Alice Hoffman" in All Categories

When the beautiful and precocious sisters Sally and Gillian Owens are orphaned at a young age, they are taken to a small Massachusetts town to be raised by their eccentric aunts, who happen to dwell in the darkest, eeriest house in town. As they become more aware of their aunts' mysterious and sometimes frightening powers - and as their own powers begin to surface - the sisters grow determined to escape their strange upbringing by blending into "normal" society.

Coney Island: Coralie Sardie is the daughter of the impresario behind The Museum of Extraordinary Things, a boardwalk freak show that amazes and stimulates the crowds. An exceptional swimmer, Coralie appears as the Mermaid in her father's "museum", alongside performers like the Wolfman, the Butterfly Girl, and a 100-year-old turtle. One night Coralie stumbles upon a striking young man photographing moonlit trees in the woods off the Hudson River.

Growing up on Long Island, Shelby Richmond is an ordinary girl until one night an extraordinary tragedy changes her fate. Her best friend's future is destroyed in an accident while Shelby walks away with the burden of guilt. What happens when a life is turned inside out? When love is something so distant it may as well be a star in the sky? Faithful is the story of a survivor filled with emotion, from dark suffering to true happiness - a moving portrait of a young woman finding her way in the modern world.

Featuring 14 original fairy tales, Faerie Knitting is an entrancing collection of stories of love and loss, trust and perseverance. Seamlessly woven into the plot of each tale is a magical garment or accessory inspired by the bravery and self-reliance of the tale’s heroine and brought to life through an imaginative and bespoke knit pattern. From the "Blue Heron Shawl" and the "Love Never Ending Cowl", to the "Three Wishes Mittens" and "Amulet Necklace", each project is as wearable as it is magical. Faerie Knitting is a rare gift for creators - and lovers - of magic. 

For the Owens family, love is a curse that began in 1620, when Maria Owens was charged with witchery for loving the wrong man. Hundreds of years later, in New York City at the cusp of the '60s, when the whole world is about to change, Susanna Owens knows that her three children are dangerously unique.

Estrella deMadrigal thought she knew herself: daughter, granddaughter, sister, dearest friend, beloved. She is Star in the Night Sky, Truth in the Darkness. But truth is rare and precious in this cruel and unforgiving century in Spain, when Jews who refused conversion to Christianity risked everything - love, life, family, faith. Then a startling discovery shakes Estrella's world to the core.

In Berlin, at the time when the world changed forever, Hanni Kohn knows she has to send her 12-year-old daughter away to save her from the Nazi regime. Turning to an old woman who is familiar with Jewish magic, she finds her way to the daughter of a rabbi who creates a Golem, a mystical Jewish creature sworn to protect Hanni’s precious daughter Lea. Lea’s journey with the Golem to France is fraught with danger and raw emotion.

Over five years in the writing, Alice Hoffman’s most ambitious and mesmerizing work ever, a triumph of imagination and research set in ancient Israel. The author of such iconic bestsellers as Illumination Night, Practical Magic, Fortune’s Daughter, and Oprah’s Book Club selection Here on Earth, Alice Hoffman is one of the most popular and memorable writers of her generation. Now, in The Dovekeepers, Hoffman delivers her most masterful work yet - one that draws on her passion for mythology, magic, and archaeology and her inimitable understanding of women.

Women of the Sparrow family have unusual gifts. Elinor can detect falsehood. Her daughter, Jenny, can see people's dreams when they sleep. Granddaughter Stella has a mental window to the future - a future that she might not want to see.

Where does the story of the Owens bloodline begin? With Maria Owens, in the 1600s, when she's abandoned on in a snowy field in rural England as a baby. Under the care of Hannah Owens, Maria learns about the "Unnamed Arts". Hannah recognizes that Maria has a gift and she teaches the girl all she knows. It is here that she learns her first important lesson: Always love someone who will love you back. 

Growing up on idyllic St. Thomas in the early 1800s, Rachel dreams of life in faraway Paris. Rachel's mother, a pillar of their small refugee community of Jews who escaped the Inquisition, has never forgiven her daughter for being a difficult girl who refuses to live by the rules. Growing up, Rachel's salvation is their maid Adelle's belief in her strengths and her deep, lifelong friendship with Jestine, Adelle's daughter. But Rachel's life is not her own.

From the town’s founder, a brave young woman from England who has no fear of blizzards or bears, to the young man who runs away to New York City, the characters in The Red Garden are extraordinary and vivid: a young wounded Civil War soldier who is saved by a neighbor, a woman who meets a fiercely human historical character, a poet who falls in love with a blind man, a mysterious traveler who comes to town in the year when summer never arrives.

The Story Sisters charts the lives of three sisters, Elv, Claire, and Meg. Each has a fate she must meet alone: one on a country road, one in the streets of Paris, and one in the corridors of her own imagination. Inhabiting their world are a charismatic man who cannot tell the truth, a neighbor who is not who he appears to be, a clumsy boy in Paris who falls in love and stays there, a detective who finds his heart's desire, and a demon who will not let go.

Natalie, a therapist, is in love with Carter - but he is deeply dedicated to his environmental work, and the fate of their relationship takes a backseat to the fate of the planet. Then a new client walks into Natalie's office. He is an intriguing man, with an incredible tale to tell, and under his influence she faces questions about the direction of her own passion, the true meaning of commitment...and the possibility of finding the love she seeks - right in her own backyard.

Twig versucht so unsichtbar wie möglich zu sein. Denn wenn einen niemand beachtet, stellt auch keiner schwierige Fragen. Dann fragt auch niemand nach dem Fluch, der seit zweihundert Jahren auf Twigs Familie lastet, oder nach dem geflügelten Ungeheuer, das sich in mondhellen Nächten über ihrem Haus in die Lüfte schwingt. Dass dieses Wesen niemand anders als ihr Bruder James ist, der mit schwarzen Flügeln auf dem Rücken geboren wurde, darf keiner wissen.

For more than a century, the small town of Haddan, Massachusetts, has been divided, as if by a line drawn down the center of Main Street, separating those born and bred in the village from those who attend the prestigious Haddan School. But one October night, an inexplicable death thrusts the two worlds together, and the town's divided history is revealed in all its complexity.

When Ethan Ford fails to show up for work on a brilliant summer morning, none of his neighbors would guess that, for more than 13 years, he has been running from his past. His true nature has been locked away, as hidden as his real identity. But sometimes locks spring open, and the devastating truths of Ethan Ford's history shatter the small-town peace of Monroe, affecting family and friends alike.

In this haunting short story of loyalty and betrayal, a young woman in early 1900s Massachusetts discovers that in navigating her treacherous coming-of-age, she must find her voice first. For fatefully observant Adeline, growing up carries an ominous warning from her adulterous mother: don’t say a word. Adeline vows to never speak again. But that’s not her only secret. After her mother takes a housekeeping job at a lighthouse off the tip of Cape Ann, a local woman vanishes. The key to the mystery lies with Adeline, the silent witness.

Twig lives in Sidwell, where people whisper that fairy tales are real. After all, her town is rumored to hide a monster. And 200 years ago, a witch placed a curse on Twig's family that was meant to last forever. But this summer, everything will change when the red moon rises. It's time to break the spell.

In a rare and gorgeous departure, beloved novelist Alice Hoffman weaves a web of tales, all set in Blackbird House. This small farm on the outer reaches of Cape Cod is a place that is as bewitching and alive as the characters we meet. These interconnected narratives are as intelligent as they are haunting, as luminous as they are unusual. Inside Blackbird House more than a dozen men and women learn how love transforms us and how it is the one lasting element in our lives.