9 results for "Novel"

Second nature

Hoffman, Alice
A suburban woman discovers her own wild spirit in this “suspenseful...dark, romantic meditation on what it means to be human”( The New Yorker ) from the bestselling author of The Rules of Magic . Robin Moore, coping with a divorce and a troubled teen-aged son, impulsively rescues a strange man from a psychiatric ward—a beautiful, uncivilized innocent who has been raised in the wilderness and possesses no more sophistication than a child. But when she brings him home to her perfectly ordered neighborhood, the events that follow cause Robin to question her wisdom and doubt her own heart—and, ultimately, to change all of her ideas about love and humanity. “Her richest and wisest, as well as her boldest, novel to date.”— The New York Times Book Review
Berkley Books 1998-02-01 258 pages

The book of magic

Hoffman, Alice
“Hoffman certainly knows how to enchant” ( The New York Times Book Review ) in this breathtaking conclusion to the Practical Magic series—a spellbinding and bewitching novel that asks how far will you go to change your fate? For over three-hundred years a curse has kept the Owens family from love—but all of that is about to change. The novel begins in a library, the best place for a story to be conjured, when beloved aunt Jet Owens hears the deathwatch beetle and knows she has only seven days to live. Jet is not the only one in danger—the curse is already at work. A frantic attempt to save a young man’s life spurs three generations of the Owens women, and one long-lost brother, to use their unusual gifts to break the curse as they travel from Paris to London to the English countryside where their ancestor Maria Owens first practiced the Unnamed Art. The younger generation discovers secrets that have been hidden from them in matters of both magic and love by Sally, their fiercely protective mother. As Kylie Owens uncovers the truth about who she is and what her own dark powers are, her aunt Franny comes to understand that she is ready to sacrifice everything for her family, and Sally Owens realizes that she is willing to give up everything for love. A heartfelt and satisfying conclusion to a beloved series, The Book of Magic celebrates mothers and daughters, sisters and brothers, and anyone who has ever been in love.
Simon & Schuster 2021-10-12 383 pages

Hoffman 4--Property of

Hoffman, Alice
Accept the idea of ennobling an addict-gangleader's obsession with Honor, and Property Of could be stunning, enthralling tragedy. Reject it, and Hoffman's first novel is still an unmistakably gifted work, lavishing heart and craft on intractably unsympathetic materials. Hoffman finds poetry--terse, tough poetry--in her unnamed narrator's doomed infatuation with McKay, president of the Orphans, a street gang whose turf is "the Avenue" near the New York City-Nassau County line. We never learn who she is, though her voice is clearly middle-class and literate, any more than we learn why McKay is insensitive, a thief, a killer, an addict. No sociological cop-outs, then, just acute observation--of the Orphans (Machiavellian pusher Dolphin, hopeless Danny the Sweet), of the "girls in mascara and leather and silence" who are the Orphans' "Property." And love. "It's only love," she says. "Don't use that word again," McKay says. "Then I'll take what I can get." What she can get is front-seat sex on the George Washington Bridge, shared needles and spoons ("It was only white powder and the blue liquid of his vein and love"), and shared despair when McKay loses honor--by accidentally shooting a rival leader in the back. "Without one word, McKay was without the world," and without heroin, he's reduced to Darvon and Thunderbird, he's deposed, beaten up, and busted. She waits for him, only to find that he comes out of prison a vengeful coke pusher ("it's a start") and an enthusiastic user. Except for occasional pretentious/romantic overkill, Hoffman's heroine records the slow and sudden dyings with clarity, irony, suppressed lyricism--and even recognizes the problems that many readers will face. "Ah, I see. You can't forget that all of the words are draped in black leather." No, most of us can't, but we'll read anyway and wait for more from Alice Hoffman. (Kirkus Reviews, May 1, 1977)
Fawcett Books 1988-08

The dovekeepers

Hoffman, Alice
Nearly two thousand years ago, nine hundred Jews held out for months against armies of Romans on Masada, a mountain in the Judean desert. According to the ancient historian Josephus, two women and five children survived. Based on this tragic and iconic event, Hoffman's novel is a spellbinding tale of four extraordinarily bold, resourceful, and sensuous women, each of whom has come to Masada by a different path. Yael's mother died in childbirth, and her father, an expert assassin, never forgave her for that death. Revka, a village baker's wife, watched the murder of her daughter by Roman soldiers; she brings to Masada her young grandsons, rendered mute by what they have witnessed. Aziza is a warrior's daughter, raised as a boy, a fearless rider and expert marksman who finds passion with a fellow soldier. Shirah, born in Alexandria, is wise in the ways of ancient magic and medicine, a woman with uncanny insight and power.The lives of these four complex and fiercely independent women intersect in the desperate days of the siege. All are dovekeepers, and all are also keeping secrets-about who they are, where they come from, who fathered them, and whom they love --
Simon & Schuster 2011 504 pages

When we flew away: a novel of Anne Frank, before the diary

Hoffman, Alice
A beautiful novel exploring the little-known story of Anne Frank's life before she went into hiding - from bestselling, award-winning author Alice Hoffman and published in cooperation with the Anne Frank House. In soaring prose, bestselling author Alice Hoffman brings Anne Frank to life on the page, drawing from her extensive research in Europe and the United States, to depict her experiences from the moment the Nazis invade the Netherlands until her family is forced into hiding in the annex of her father's office building at 263 Prinsengracht, in Amsterdam. As state-sponsored discrimination turns ordinary people into monsters, the Jews of the Netherlands are caught in an inescapable swell of violence and hate, and Anne is shaped as both a young woman and as a writer who will change the world. WHEN WE FLEW AWAYfeatures archival content provided by the Anne Frank House, as well as information about Otto Frank's desperate bids to get his family to safety in America gathered from correspondence between Otto Frank and Nathan Straus, Jr., from the Straus Historical Society's Archives. A heart-wrenching exploration of Anne's life before the annex By New York Times bestselling author of The World We Knew, Alice Hoffman Featuring archival content provided by the Anne Frank House
Scholastic 2024-09-17 320 pages

The story sisters

Hoffman, Alice
A haunting and emotionally satisfying novel from a much-loved and critically acclaimed author, which weaves fairy tale and gritty realism together to dazzlingly effect. '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. What does a mother do when one of her children goes astray? How does she save one daughter without sacrificing the others? How deep can love go, and how far can it take you? At once a coming-of-age tale, a family saga, and a love story of erotic longing, 'The Story Sisters' sifts through the miraculous and the mundane as the girls become women and their choices haunt them, change them and, finally, redeem them.
HarperPress 2010 325 pages