I want to fall all over myself over this book, like most of the rest of you. I truly do.

I loved the Practical Magic movie (who didn't??). More recently, I loved the book, too, and felt like it was pitch perfect.

And the recent Faery Magazine homage to Alice Hoffman, Witches, and this forthcoming book was SO incredibly rich and juicy, I could hardly wait to reserve it for immediate delivery upon publication.

So..??
Well, it was a real tour de force of all things 1960s. Nice flavor and background. Loads of quickie magical tips and herbalism sprinkled throughout. Interesting characters.. but.

I don't know. Ultimately I really had trouble, it seems, connecting to the protagonists. I liked the supporting characters. I liked Isabelle the best.

But Franny and Jet? There was just something flat about them. After a while, their angst just grew tiresome. And Vincent? He seemed forced and untrue.

And dammit, Ms. Hoffman. Cancer seems to haunt your books; in some it is so insistent that I have had to discontinue reading. I managed to get through this one, since it was not central.

But dammit. Having had more than my share of cancer in my life, I, for one, cannot bear it in my books for pleasure. But that wasn't the cause of my disappointment.

Ms. Hoffman is a master of setting; of evoking a sense of the time and place, and peripheral details of the story.

Still, I cannot join the raves, even though I was sure I would. I had fully expected to.

Maybe my hopes and expectations were unrealistic.

But for me, the magic just never really showed up, or when it ever so slightly peeked through, it mostly just seemed sad.