The Invisible Hour- by Alice Hoffman - August 15, 2023, 265 Pages

 Alice Hoffman works I have read

The Marriage of Opposites- 2015

"Everything My Mother Taught Me" - 2016

"The Book Store Sisters" -2022

The Foretelling - 2006

"Conjure" - 2014

Aquamarine- 2001

The Ice Queen - 2006

Property Of -1977

Magic Lessons- 2020

Skylight- 2007

The Red Garden - 2011

The Drowning Season- 2014

I am attempting a read through of the works of Alice Hoffman.

Alice Hoffman often writes about magical elements in the lives of her characters.  The Invisible Hour has brought some magic into my reading life.

"One brilliant June day when Mia Jacob can no longer see a way to survive, the power of words saves her. The Scarlet Letter was written almost two hundred years earlier, but it seems to tell the story of Mia’s mother, Ivy, and their life inside the Community—an oppressive cult in western Massachusetts where contact with the outside world is forbidden, and books are considered evil. But how could this be? How could Nathaniel Hawthorne have so perfectly captured the pain and loss that Mia carries inside her?

Through a journey of heartbreak, love, and time, Mia must abandon the rules she was raised with at the Community. As she does, she realizes that reading can transport you to other worlds or bring them to you, and that readers and writers affect one another in mysterious ways. She learns that time is more fluid than she can imagine, and that love is stronger than any chains that bind you.

As a girl Mia fell in love with a book. Now as a young woman she falls in love with a brilliant writer as she makes her way back in time. But what if Nathaniel Hawthorne never wrote The Scarlet Letter? And what if Mia Jacob never found it on the day she planned to die?

Nathaniel Hawthorne wrote: “A single dream is more powerful than a thousand realities.”

This is the story of one woman’s dream. For a little while it came true." From the publisher 

I do not have much to add to this,  I totally emphasised with Mia and feared for her as she was hunted by the leader of the cult from which she escaped. Her. Love of reading motivated her to become a librarian. One book, The Scarlet Letter, became her most treasured work. I learned a lot about Nathaniel Hawthorn and his family from The Invisible Hour.  If you have not yet read The Scarlet Letter this book will add it to your to be read (or reread)list)

Alice Hoffman is the author of more than thirty works of fiction, including The Book of Magic, Magic Lessons, The World That We Knew, Practical Magic, The Rules of Magic (a Reese Witherspoon Book Club Pick), the Oprahs Book Club Selection Here on Earth, The Red Garden, The Dovekeepers, The Museum of Extraordinary Things, The Marriage of Opposites, and Faithful. She lives near Boston.

In the interest of full disclosure I was given a review copy of The Invisible Hour.

Mel Ulm