Alice Hoffman

Den røde tråden i boka er myten om den makt og fascinasjon som vakre og lovløse menn kan ha over kvinner. Dina har vokst opp med fortellinger om slike menn. Ariaer kalles de. De rir gjennom ørkenen på hvite hester, under purpurrøde solnedganger og i stjernestrødde netter. Dina overfører sin drøm om en slik mann til datteren. De tror begge at hennes bror er en Aria. Teresa drømmer om at han skal velge henne og ta henne med seg.

The lives of four sensuous, bold and remarkable women intersect in the year 70AD, in the desperate days of the siege of Masada, when supplies are dwindling and the Romans are drawing near. All are dovekeepers, and all are keepers of secrets - about who they are, where they come from, who fathered them, and whom they love. There is Yael, the assassin's daughter whose heartbreak leads to her true path in the ruins of the desert; Revka, the baker's wife who loses her dearest treasure on earth and yet finds the strength to protect her family; Aziza, the warrior's beloved who leads a secret life not even those closest to her could imagine; and Marit, beautiful witch of Moab, a woman as loyal as she is dangerous.

Told from Gretel Samuelson's sly and knowing perspective, Local Girls charts her progress as she navigates from childhood to the brink of womanhood, picking her way though the tragedies and absurdities of everyday life in a family which is rocked by divorce and disaster, bad judgement and fierce attachments. Her father has left them, her chain-smoking mother, Franny, is falling apart and refuses to learn the simple lessons of life, her perfect brother has fatal flaws, and even her best friend Jill - blonde, enviable and beautiful - is moving too fast into the unfathomable world of women.

A spellbinding coming of age novel about three sisters and the relationships and choices that shape their lives from the bestselling author of Reese Witherspoon Book Club pick, The Rules of Magic "This bewitching novel explores the bonds of sisterhood like a haunting modern fairy tale."--Glamour Each of three sisters--Elv, Claire, and Meg--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? These are the questions this luminous novel asks. At once a coming-of-age tale, a family saga, and a love story of sensual 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. It confirms Alice Hoffman's reputation as "a writer whose keen ear for the measure struck by the beat of the human heart is unparalleled" (The Chicago Tribune).

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 acclaimed first novel by Alice Hoffman, a "marvelous writer with a painter's eye" (Washington Post Book World), Property Of is about a young girl fearlessly in love with a gang leader but afraid of losing herself in his world. When it was first published in 1977, Kirkus Reviews described Property Of as "that precious commodity, the first novel of great promise." In telling the story of a young outsider who is obsessed with her gang-leader lover but unwilling to commit to becoming one of "the Property of the Orphans"--the tough girls who belong to the boys on the avenue--Alice Hoffman explores hard truths about how difficult it is to love another, and yet how much more difficult it is to pull away.

This haunting, poignant and addictive story travels effortlessly across time, telling the tale of three generations of women who make the wrong choices and have to live with the consequences.

A magical and stunningly original story that charts the lives of three women in love with the wrong men from the bestselling author of Reese Witherspoon Book Club pick, The Rules of Magic "Headstrong women, reckless love affairs and a liberal dusting of the supernatural are the pleasurable trademarks of an Alice Hoffman novel. . . . The Third Angel] should bewitch old fans and new readers alike."--People Headstrong Madeleine Heller finds herself hopelessly attracted to her sister's fianc . Frieda Lewis, a doctor's daughter and a runaway, becomes the muse of an ill-fated rock star. And beautiful Bryn Evans is set to marry an Englishman while secretly obsessed with her ex-husband. At the heart of the novel is Lucy Green, who blames herself for a tragic accident she witnessed at the age of twelve, and who spends four decades searching for the Third Angel-the angel on earth who will renew her faith. Brilliantly evoking London's King's Road, Knightsbridge, and Kensington while moving effortlessly back in time, The Third Angel is a work of startling beauty about the unique, alchemical nature of love.

On the night that Arlyn Singer's father dies, she is certain her destiny will find her. Years later, Arlyn is gone, leaving her children, Sam and Blanca, alone with their distant father in the glass house they have made their home.

Writing at the height of her powers, Alice Hoffman conjures three generations of a family haunted by love. Cool, practical, and deliberate, John is dreamy Arlyn's polar opposite. Yet the two are drawn powerfully together even when it is clear they are bound to bring each other grief. Their difficult marriage leads them and their children to a house made of glass in the Connecticutcountryside, to the avenues ofManhattan, and to the blue waters of Long Island Sound. Glass breaks, love hurts, and families make their own rules. Ultimately, it falls to their grandson, Will, to solve the emotional puzzle of his family and of his own identity.

Hiding her faith in kabbalah during a time in Spain when living openly as a Jew was a dangerous thing to do, Estrella struggles with her identity and her faith as events unfold around her that force her to come to terms with who she really wants to be in life. An ALA Best Book for Young Adults. Reprint.

As an obsessive love affair begins between them, both are forced to hide their most dangerous secrets - what turned one to ice and the other to fire. The Ice Queen is a haunting story of passion, loss, second chances and the secrets that come to define us, if we're not careful.

After a small town librarian survives a lightning strike, she seeks out a fellow survivor in a quest for meaning, only to begin an obsessive love affair between two opposites joined by a single common thread. Reprint. 100,000 first printing.

With a sense of place that is uncanny, and vividly real characters whose lives don't run smooth and whose stories loop together across space and time, this is work from a favourite novelist.

If you haven't encountered Alice Hoffman's watery fairy tales of modern magic, dive in! Aquamarine The tide brings in something unexpected that will change best friends Claire and Haley's last summer together. Indigo Martha and her friends discover that running to follow a dream is the only way they'll find the true meaning of 'home'.

With "incantatory prose" that "sweeps over the reader like a dream," (Philadelphia Inquirer), Hoffman follows her celebrated bestseller The Probable Future, with an evocative work that traces the lives of the various occupants of an old Massachusetts house over a span of two hundred years.In a rare and gorgeous departure, beloved novelist Alice Hoffman weaves a web of tales, all set in Blackbird House. This small farm on the outer reaches of Cape Cod is a place that is as bewitching and alive as the characters we meet: Violet, a brilliant girl who is in love with books and with a man destined to betray her; Lysander Wynn, attacked by a halibut as big as a horse, certain that his life is ruined until a boarder wearing red boots arrives to change everything; Maya Cooper, who does not understand the true meaning of the love between her mother and father until it is nearly too late. From the time of the British occupation of Massachusetts to our own modern world, family after family's lives are inexorably changed, not only by the people they love but by the lives they lead inside Blackbird House. These interconnected narratives are as intelligent as they are haunting, as luminous as they are unusual. Inside Blackbird House more than a dozen men and women learn how love transforms us and how it is the one lasting element in our lives. The past both dissipates and remains contained inside the rooms of Blackbird House, where there are terrible secrets, inspired beauty, and, above all else, a spirit of coming home. From the writer Time has said tells "truths powerful enough to break a reader's heart" comes a glorious travelogue through time and fate, through loss and love and survival. Welcome to Blackbird House.

When the women in the Sparrow family reach thirteen, they develop a unique ability. In young Stella's case, the gift, which is both a blessing and a curse, is the ability to see a person's probable future. Stella foresees a gruesome murder, and tells her charming, feckless father about it, but it is too late - the murder has already been committed and suspicion falls on him. Hoffman unlocks the caskets of family life and the secret history of a community in this magical story about young love and old love, about making choices - usually the wrong ones - about foresight and consequences, all suffused with the haunting scent of roses and wisteria, and the hum of bees on a summer evening.

Alice Hoffman's most magical novel to date--three generations of extraordinary women are driven to unite in crisis and discover the rewards of reconciliation and love. Women of the Sparrow family have unusual gifts. Elinor can detect falsehood. Her daughter, Jenny, can see people's dreams when they sleep. Granddaughter Stella has a mental window on the future--a future that she might not want to see. In The Probable Future this vivid and intriguing cast of characters confronts a haunting past--and a very current murder--against the evocative backdrop of small-town New England. By turns chilling and enchanting, The Probable Future chronicles the Sparrows's legacy as young Stella struggles to cope with her disturbing clairvoyance. Her potential to ruin or redeem becomes unbearable when one of her premonitions puts her father in jail, wrongly accused of homicide. Yet this ordeal also leads Stella to the grandmother she was forbidden to meet and to a historic family home full of talismans from her ancestors. Poignant, arresting, unsettling, The Probable Future showcases the lavish literary gifts that have made Alice Hoffman one of America's most treasured writers. Praise for The Probable Future "A thrilling adventure of literary alchemy . . . A magical, mystical tour de force of pure entertainment."--The Seattle Times "Delicious . . . Hoffman is an unapologetic optimist, and optimism is in short supply these days. It feels like a vacation to curl up with The Probable Future]."--The New York Times Book Review "Instantly alluring . . . A mysterious, modern-day fairy tale . . . Hoffman is an amazingly talented writer with a beautiful sense of sentence construction, an intriguing imagination, and the ability to create compelling, complex characters that readers care about."--Fort Worth Star-Telegram "Hoffman's ethereal tale of a family of women with supernatural gifts is a magical escape, grounded in the complex relationships between mothers and daughters."--Marie Claire

Sorcery is the legacy of Gillian and Sally Owens, a two-hundred-year-old family legacy they both try to escape--one through marriage, the other through running away--until they realize that their magic is a gift, rather than an affliction. Reprint.