She blamed love for her undoing, for she’d chosen the wrong man, with dire consequences. The court set out to destroy Maria and nearly did, but she could not be drowned, and she did not back down. People said Maria could turn herself into a crow, that she had the ability to enchant men without ever speaking to them directly and to compel other women to do as they pleased, so that they were willing to forsake their proper place in society and in their own families. Those were the days when witchery was forbidden and women were harshly punished, judged to be dangerous creatures if they talked too much, or read books, or did their best to protect themselves from harm. Long ago, the library had been a jail where Maria Owens, the first woman in their family to set foot in Massachusetts in 1680, had been confined until the judges announced she would be hanged. Some people unravel or run for shelter when their time has come, they curse their fate or hide under their beds, but Jet knew exactly what she wished to do in the last days she’d been granted. The sweep of the branches of one of the last elm trees in the commonwealth, which shadowed the library’s lawn.
MASS EFFECT SAVE EDITOR RAVEN BLACK HAIR WINDOWS
The sun streaming through the library windows in fierce bands of orange light. It had taken this long for Jet to appreciate that every instant was a marvel. This was the moment that revealed how you had walked through the world, with kindness or with fear, with your heart open or closed. Its presence meant that the past was over and the future no longer existed. When your time came, the black beetle would withdraw from hiding and follow you everywhere, no matter where you went. The deathwatch beetle had begun to call from within the walls of the Owens Library, a sound that often went unnoticed until it was so loud it was all a person could hear. On this day, when the daffodils had begun to bloom, Jet saw that she had seven days to live. Jet had no aches or pains and had never been ill a day in her life, but fate is fate and it can often be what you least expect it to be. Each day she washed with the black soap the family prepared in March during the dark phase of the moon, with every bar then wrapped in crinkly cellophane. Even in her eighties, Jet was still beautiful. It was there that Jet Owens saw her fate in a mirror behind the reference desk. Some stories begin at the beginning and others begin at the end, but all the best stories begin in a library. The Book of Magic is a breathtaking conclusion that celebrates mothers and daughters, sisters and brothers, and anyone who has ever been in love. 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. The younger generation discovers secrets that have been hidden from them in matters of both magic and love by Sally, their fiercely protective mother. Jet is not the only one in danger-the curse is already at work.Ī 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 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. The Owens family has been cursed in matters of love for over three-hundred years but all of that is about to change.
MASS EFFECT SAVE EDITOR RAVEN BLACK HAIR SERIES
Master storyteller Alice Hoffman brings us the conclusion of the Practical Magic series in a spellbinding and enchanting final Owens novel brimming with lyric beauty and vivid characters.
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