Book Review-Red Garden

I've loved Alice Hoffman's novels for years and always look forward to her latest.  I just finished The Red Garden and it lived up to my expectations.

This book follows the story of a town, or more specifically a garden, rather than people.   The story of the garden is told through the people who lived near it over the years.  The first story takes place in 1750, when the town of Bearsville was founded.  Hallie and William Brady, along with three other families, set out from the Boston area and ended up in the Berkshires, where they founded Bearsville.  Later, thinking the name might not be a draw, they changed it to Blackwell.  Hallie was not afraid of anything and almost single handedly kept the families alive through the first winter.  It is her garden that is at the center of the book.  The stories follow the descendents of the first families (especially the descendents of Hallie) through the Civil War, Great Depression, First and Second World Wars, the Vietnam War right up to current times and how the garden and environs of Blackwell shape the people. 

The Red Garden By Hoffman, Alice 2011-01 - Crown Publishing Group (NY) 9780307393876 Check Our Catalog BookPage Notable Title From the bestselling author of "The Third Angel" and "The Story Sisters" comes a shimmering, unforgettable new book. Hoffman offers a transforming glimpse into small-town America, presenting readers with 300 years of passion, dark secrets, loyalty, and redemption in a web of tales where characters' lives are intertwined by fate and by their own actions. …More

Practical Magic By Hoffman, Alice 2003-08 - Berkley Publishing Group 9780425190371 Check Our Catalog From the bestselling author of "Blue Diary" comes a novel that reveals what happens when magic competes with real love. At the heart of this work are Gillian and Sally Owens, whose conjuring spinster aunts raised them not with square meals and curfews but with magic spells and respect for the powers of nature. …More

Turtle Moon By Hoffman, Alice 1997-09 - Berkley Publishing Group 9780425161289 Check Our Catalog This is Alice Hoffman's "captivating...truly original novel" (Cosmopolitan), the story of a divorced woman, her teenage son, and the events that change their lives. …More

Here on Earth By Hoffman, Alice 1998-03 - Berkley Publishing Group 9780425167311 Check Our Catalog The author of such bestselling novels as "Seventh Heaven" and "Practical Magic" creates her most glorious fictional world to date in a spellbinding tale of love and obsession. After nearly 20 years of living in California, March Murray and her daughter Gwen return to March's small Massachusetts hometown. Thrust into the world of her past, March slowly comes to realize the complexity of the choices made by those around her, including Hollis, the boy she loved--now the man she can't seem to stay away from. …More

The Probable Future By Hoffman, Alice 2004-06 - Ballantine Books 9780345455918 Check Our Catalog The women of the Sparrow family have lived in New England for generations. Each is born in the month of March, and at the age of thirteen, each develops an unusual gift. Elinor can literally smell a lie. Her daughter, Jenny, can see people's dreams as they're dreaming them. Granddaughter Stella, newly a teen, has just developed the ability to see how other people will die. Ironically, it is their gifts that have kept Elinor and Jenny apart for the last twenty-five years. But as Stella struggles to cope with her disturbing clairvoyance, the unthinkable happens: One of her premonitions lands her father in jail, wrongly accused of homicide. The ordeal leads Stella to the grandmother she's never met and to Cake House, the Sparrow ancestral home full of talismans and fraught with history. Now three generations of estranged Sparrow women must come together to turn Stella's potential to ruin into a potential to redeem. …More

Seventh Heaven By Hoffman, Alice 2003-04 - Berkley Publishing Group 9780425188484 Check Our Catalog In the late 1950s, when Nora Silk moves into Hemlock street, the neighbors are shocked by her Toreador pants and scandalous behavior. But when they get to know her, they begin to see other things in Nora--and this Long Island town will never be the same. A "New York Times" bestseller. …More

The Ice Queen By Hoffman, Alice 2006-01 - Back Bay Books 9780316154383 Check Our Catalog Be careful what you wish for. A small town librarian lives a quiet life without much excitement. One day, she mutters and idle wish and, while standing in her house, is struck by lightning. But instead of ending her life, this cataclysmic event sparks it into a new beginning. She goes in search of Lazarus Jones, a fellow survivor who was struck dead, then simply got up and walked away. Perhaps this stranger who has seen death face to face can teach her to live without fear. When she finds himhe is opposite, a burning man whose breath can boil water and whose touch scorches. …More

The Third Angel By Hoffman, Alice 2008-04 - Shaye Areheart Books 9780307393852 Check Our Catalog BookPage Notable Title Veteran heartstring-puller Hoffman examines the lives of three women at different crossroads in their lives, tying their London-centered stories together in devastating retrospect--"Publishers Weekly." …More