The Owens family is an interesting study. A family of bloodline witches who are born with incredible power and a powerful curse. We first met them in Alice Hoffman’s book Practical Magic. Sister Sally and Gillian face evil and learn to love more, not less. In Hoffman’s book, we go backward, not forward, in time to learn more about Sally and Gillian’s aunts. The two Aunts raised the sisters after their parents died. But like most kids, they never bothered to learn about who their aunts were before they were “the aunts”. In The Rules of Magic, we meet Franny and Jet as young girls learning to navigate life and love. We also get to learn about a long-lost brother we didn’t know about. We also learn more about the family curse that brings any man foolish enough to love an Owens woman to ruin.
[Warning: My review of The Rules of Magic contains some spoilers!]
A hidden past
Susanna Owens wanted to protect her children. As an Owens, she had already been burned by the curse that had afflicted their family for over two hundred years. Her heart had been broken by falling in love, and so she rejected all magic. In the hopes that it would keep her children from ever feeling such pain, she hid her past. Susanna sought to eliminate magic from their world in every way she could.
But you can’t stop fate. When her oldest, Franny, turned 17, an invitation arrived from Aunt Isabelle in Massachusetts. It was time for the children to come home and learn about their family. Susanna couldn’t resist the invite, so the children were sent to the very house that their ancestor, Maria Owens, had built over two hundred years ago to shelter their family and protect their heritage.
There, the siblings ran wild for the summer. They discovered magic for the first time. They also learned about the family curse. At first, they don’t believe in the curse. But when two young men are killed in a freak accident after declaring their love for the sisters, they take it more seriously. Still, they can’t control something like love, and what will be, will be. The siblings try different ways to avoid the curse, but in the end it’s clear: falling in love with an Owens leads to ruin, one way or the other. According to Maria, the answer is to love more, not less. Are Franny, Jet, and Vincent strong enough to withstand the curse, or will they retreat from the world to save themselves?
If you’re going to play with something as dangerous as magic, you need to know the rules
First, do as you will, but harm no one. Second, what you give will be returned to you threefold. And finally, fall in love whenever you can. These are the three most important rules for the Owens family, although they seem to forget the last rule a lot. It’s understandable; you can only have your heart broken so many times before you stop wanting to put it out there.
But the first two are repeated often by the siblings. Especially as they try to navigate the anger and grief that comes from having their hearts broken. Each sibling deals with the curse in their own way. Franny tries to wall her heart off and deny any feelings. Jet gives herself over to love, then lives with the consequences, continuing to love despite the pain of loss. And Vincent denies love exists until he can’t, then takes drastic measures to get what he wants.
All three have a complicated relationship with magic and with others. Interestingly, the way they relate to magic mirrors how they relate to the world. Whether it’s gentle and altruistic or wild and selfish, the siblings’ connections reflect their personalities.
There’s a lot of love in The Rules of Magic despite the curse
Of course, there are all kinds of romantic love in The Rules of Magic. Each sibling has at least one deep romantic relationship in the book. But the better love story is between the siblings themselves. The three really care about each other. They are there through all their ups and downs, helping each other as best they can. Sure, their differing personalities mean that sometimes they aren’t the best at supporting each other. Sometimes they don’t realize what another needs. And sometimes one only cares about what they want. But in the end, they have each other’s backs. There is nothing that they wouldn’t do for each other, even comfort an old enemy or say goodbye forever; whatever one needs, they all need. It’s an uplifting view of what a sibling relationship can be when done right, something that I’m sorry only children, but you’ll just never quite understand.
A prequel with as much heart as the original
Practical Magic was a love song to sisters. But that left out an awful lot of sibling relationships. The Rules of Magic gives us a great follow-up love song to the sister-brother relationship. Both are odes to familial love, but the scope of The Rules of Magic is so much bigger. Not just because it offers a three-way relationship, but because it covers so much more time. Practical Magic really looks at a few months in the lives of Sally and Gillian, but The Rules of Magic covers decades of Franny, Jet, and Vincent fighting with and for each other. It’s a prequel that is every bit as engrossing as the original, tracing the impact of love and loss on one family through the generations.
Rating: 9/10
The Rules of Magic by Alice Hoffman is available now!
Learn more about the book on the official website for the title.
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