In an unforgettable novel that traces a centuries-old curse to its source, beloved author Alice Hoffman unveils the story of Maria Owens, accused of witchcraft in Salem, and matriarch of a line of the amazing Owens women and men featured in PRACTICAL MAGIC and THE RULES OF MAGIC.

In an unforgettable novel that traces a centuries-old curse to its source, beloved author Alice Hoffman unveils the story of Maria Owens, accused of witchcraft in Salem, and matriarch of a line of the amazing Owens women and men featured in PRACTICAL MAGIC and THE RULES OF MAGIC.

In an unforgettable novel that traces a centuries-old curse to its source, beloved author Alice Hoffman unveils the story of Maria Owens, accused of witchcraft in Salem, and matriarch of a line of the amazing Owens women and men featured in PRACTICAL MAGIC and THE RULES OF MAGIC.

Where does the story of the Owens bloodline begin? With Maria Owens, in the 1600s, when she’s abandoned 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.

When Maria is abandoned by the man who has declared his love for her, she follows him to Salem, Massachusetts. Here she invokes the curse that will haunt her family. And it’s here that she learns the rules of magic and the lesson that she will carry with her for the rest of her life. Love is the only thing that matters.

MAGIC LESSONS is a celebration of life and love and a showcase of Alice Hoffman’s masterful storytelling.

From the internationally bestselling author of REASONS TO STAY ALIVE and HOW TO STOP TIME comes a dazzling novel about all the choices that go into a life well lived.

From the internationally bestselling author of REASONS TO STAY ALIVE and HOW TO STOP TIME comes a dazzling novel about all the choices that go into a life well lived.

A dazzling novel about all the choices that go into a life well lived, from the internationally bestselling author of REASONS TO STAY ALIVE and HOW TO STOP TIME.

Somewhere out beyond the edge of the universe, there is a library that contains an infinite number of books, each one the story of another reality. One tells the story of your life as it is, along with another book for the other life you could have lived if you had made a different choice at any point in your life. While we all wonder how our lives might have been, what if you had the chance to go to the library and see for yourself? Would any of these other lives truly be better?

In THE MIDNIGHT LIBRARY, Matt Haig's enchanting new novel, Nora Seed finds herself faced with this decision. Confronted with the possibility of changing her life for a new one, following a different career, undoing old breakups, realizing her dreams of becoming a glaciologist, she must search within herself as she travels through the Midnight Library to decide what is truly fulfilling in life, and what makes it worth living in the first place.

The award-winning author of THE MISEDUCATION OF CAMERON POST makes her adult debut with this highly imaginative and original horror-comedy centered on a cursed New England boarding school for girls --- a wickedly whimsical celebration of the art of storytelling, sapphic love and the rebellious female spirit.

The award-winning author of THE MISEDUCATION OF CAMERON POST makes her adult debut with this highly imaginative and original horror-comedy centered on a cursed New England boarding school for girls --- a wickedly whimsical celebration of the art of storytelling, sapphic love and the rebellious female spirit.

The award-winning author of THE MISEDUCATION OF CAMERON POST makes her adult debut with this highly imaginative and original horror-comedy centered on a cursed New England boarding school for girls --- a wickedly whimsical celebration of the art of storytelling, sapphic love and the rebellious female spirit.

Our story begins in 1902, at the Brookhants School for Girls. Flo and Clara, two impressionable students, are obsessed with each other and with a daring young writer named Mary MacLane, the author of a scandalous bestselling memoir. To show their devotion to Mary, the girls establish their own private club and call it the Plain Bad Heroine Society. They meet in secret in a nearby apple orchard, the setting of their wildest happiness and, ultimately, of their macabre deaths. This is where their bodies are later discovered with a copy of Mary’s book splayed beside them, the victims of a swarm of stinging, angry yellow jackets. Less than five years later, the Brookhants School for Girls closes its doors forever --- but not before three more people mysteriously die on the property, each in a most troubling way.

Over a century later, the now abandoned and crumbling Brookhants is back in the news when wunderkind writer Merritt Emmons publishes a breakout book celebrating the queer, feminist history surrounding the “haunted and cursed” Gilded Age institution. Her bestselling book inspires a controversial horror film adaptation starring celebrity actor and lesbian it girl Harper Harper playing the ill-fated heroine Flo, oppo­site B-list actress and former child star Audrey Wells as Clara. But as Brookhants opens its gates once again, and our three modern her­oines arrive on set to begin filming, past and present become grimly entangled --- or perhaps just grimly exploited --- and soon it’s impossible to tell where the curse leaves off and Hollywood begins.

A story within a story within a story and featuring black-and-white period-inspired illustrations, PLAIN BAD HEROINES is a devilishly haunting, modern masterwork of metafiction that manages to combine the ghostly sensibility of Sarah Waters with the dark imagination of Marisha Pessl and the sharp humor and incisive social commentary of Curtis Sittenfeld into one laugh-out-loud funny, spellbinding and wonderfully luxuriant read.