With Practical Magic back in the spotlight, readers are rediscovering the work of Alice Hoffman, the bestselling American novelist whose stories blend magical realism with love, family, loss and the complicated lives of women.
Hoffman published the original Practical Magic in 1995, years before Sandra Bullock and Nicole Kidman brought the Owens sisters to the screen in the 1998 cult film.
But the novel was only the beginning.
Hoffman eventually expanded the Owens family story into a four-book series, while her wider bibliography spans decades of fiction exploring everything from historical tragedy and forbidden love to identity, grief and resilience. She has written more than 30 works of fiction.
For readers who want to go beyond the familiar film, here are five Alice Hoffman books worth adding to the reading list.
Practical Magic
The obvious place to begin is the novel that started it all.
Published in 1995, Practical Magic follows sisters Sally and Gillian Owens, who grow up under the shadow of a family curse that supposedly prevents the women of their bloodline from finding lasting love.
Raised by their eccentric aunts in Massachusetts, the sisters inherit a complicated relationship with magic, family and the expectations placed upon them.
Hoffman’s novel is considerably different in tone from the 1998 film.
While the movie embraces its supernatural elements and romantic comedy, the book is more interested in the emotional lives of the Owens sisters and the ways family history shapes their choices.
The novel established the central themes that would later define the wider series: female solidarity, inherited trauma, love, independence and the possibility of breaking patterns that have lasted for generations.
It remains the essential starting point for anyone interested in Hoffman’s magical world.
The Rules of Magic
Published more than two decades after Practical Magic, The Rules of Magic travels back in time to explore the previous generation of Owens women.
The story follows siblings Franny, Jet and Vincent Owens as they grow up in New York during the 1960s.
The three children are raised with a set of unusual family rules. They are forbidden from walking barefoot, wearing black and, most importantly, falling in love.
But rules have never been enough to protect the Owens family from its own history.
The novel expands the mythology introduced in Practical Magic while exploring the origins of the family’s relationship with love and loss.
It also gives readers a deeper understanding of the aunts who became such memorable figures in the original story.
For fans of the Owens family, The Rules of Magic offers the chance to see where some of their most important traditions began.
Magic Lessons
Magic Lessons goes even further back.
Set centuries before the events of Practical Magic, the novel introduces Maria Owens, the woman at the beginning of the Owens family line.
Maria is accused of witchcraft after arriving in colonial America, but her story is less about conventional ideas of good and evil than about survival, love and the discovery of her own power.
The novel traces how the Owens family’s famous curse began and introduces the roots of the magical traditions that would eventually be passed from generation to generation.
It also gives the Practical Magic mythology a much larger historical dimension.
Rather than presenting magic simply as supernatural power, Hoffman connects it with knowledge, women helping women and the ability to survive circumstances designed to silence them.
For readers fascinated by the history behind the Owens family, Magic Lessons is arguably the most revealing book in the series.
The Book of Magic
The Book of Magic brings the Owens family saga to its conclusion.
Published in 2021, the novel returns to the modern-day family and follows three generations of Owens women as they attempt to finally break the curse that has haunted them for more than 300 years.
The story begins when Aunt Jet hears the deathwatch beetle, an omen traditionally associated with death, and learns that she may have only seven days left.
Her fate sets off a desperate journey involving Sally, Gillian, Kylie and other members of the Owens family.
The story moves from Paris to London and the English countryside as the family searches for answers connected to their ancestor Maria Owens.
At its heart, The Book of Magic is about family.
Hoffman brings together mothers, daughters, sisters and brothers while exploring whether a curse can truly determine the course of someone’s life.
It also provides the clearest conclusion to the Owens family’s long struggle with love.
The Museum of Extraordinary Things
For readers who want to explore Hoffman beyond the Practical Magic universe, The Museum of Extraordinary Things is an ideal introduction.
Published in 2014, the novel is set in early 20th-century New York and follows Coralie Sardie, the daughter of the owner of a bizarre Coney Island museum filled with unusual attractions.
Coralie has a mysterious connection to the water and is expected to become one of her father’s performers.
Her life changes when she encounters Eddie Cohen, a young photographer who has escaped his own difficult past.
Their stories unfold against a changing New York marked by industrialisation, immigration, social inequality and historic disasters.
Like many of Hoffman’s novels, the book combines elements of magical realism with historical fiction while keeping its focus on human relationships.
It is also a good example of why Hoffman has remained such a distinctive literary voice: the extraordinary exists alongside the everyday, but the emotional reality of her characters remains at the centre.
Where to Start With Alice Hoffman
Readers interested specifically in the Owens family have two ways to approach the Practical Magic books.
Hoffman herself says readers can follow the order in which the novels were written: Practical Magic, The Rules of Magic, Magic Lessons and The Book of Magic.
Alternatively, they can read them chronologically: Magic Lessons, The Rules of Magic, Practical Magic and The Book of Magic.
For first-time readers, publication order preserves the original mystery surrounding the Owens family and allows the mythology to unfold naturally.
For those who want to understand the family’s history from its earliest beginnings, chronological order offers a different experience.
Either way, the books reveal a much larger world than the one seen in the original film.
Alice Hoffman’s stories ultimately return to the same questions: What do we inherit from the people who came before us? Can love overcome fear? And how much of our future is truly determined by our past?
Those questions are what make Practical Magic—and Hoffman’s wider body of work—continue to cast a spell decades after the first Owens story was published.
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