Alice Hoffman books in order: Complete reading guide
If you’re looking for Alice Hoffman books in order, this guide is a place to explore her work, whether you’re discovering her for the first time or looking for your next read. Along with her series, standalone novels, young adult books, and nonfiction, I’ve included recommendations to help you decide where to start, screen adaptations, authors to try if you love Hoffman’s writing, book club resources, and a few bookish gift ideas.
Alice Hoffman is known for stories where the ordinary and the magical exist side by side, blending love, family, history, and the supernatural.
Best known for Practical Magic, she has also written acclaimed novels including The Dovekeepers, The Museum of Extraordinary Things, and The World That We Knew.
Her latest novel, The Witches of Cambridge, returns to the magic and enchantment that have become hallmarks of her work.
Most Alice Hoffman books are standalones, while her series include the Practical Magic books, which follow generations of the Owens family, and the Once Upon a Time Bookshop stories.
Below, you’ll find:
Alice Hoffman books in order
Practical Magic series
Once Upon a Time Bookshop series
Standalone novels
YA novels
Nonfiction
Recommendations on which book to delve in first
Screen adaptations
Authors like Alice Hoffman
Book club kits
Alice Hoffman gift ideas
FAQs
Alice Hoffman books in order
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Practical Magic Series
1995
Practical Magic
Sisters Sally and Gillian Owens have spent their lives trying to escape their family's witchy reputation, but when a dead man turns up in their house, their family curse comes roaring back.
2017
The Rules of Magic
Franny, Jet, and Vincent Owens grow up with a bizarre list of family rules including no black clothes, no cats, and absolutely no falling in love… until they discover they're witches.
2020
Magic Lessons
Maria Owens discovers she has magical powers in seventeenth-century England, but falling in love with the wrong man sets off the curse that will haunt the Owens women for centuries.
2021
The Book of Magic (Practical Magic #2)
The Owens women finally decide they've had enough of their family curse and set out to break the spell that has doomed them to lose the people they love.
Once Upon a Time Bookshop Series
2022
The Bookstore Sisters
A mysterious letter sends Isabel back to Brinkley’s Island and the struggling family bookstore she abandoned, forcing her to face the sister, home, and past she’d left behind.
2024
The Bookstore Wedding
Isabel and Johnny have set the date three times, baked three wedding cakes, and watched every attempt fall apart. Before they can finally say “I do,” Isabel and Sophie must confront their family’s painful past.
2025
The Bookstore Keepers
Five years into their second chance, Isabel and Johnny are happily running the family bookstore when an extraordinary dream changes everything and forces them to make room for an unexpected new chapter.
2025
The Bookstore Family
Violet leaves her family’s Maine bookstore for culinary school in Paris, but even her dream job as a pâtissière can’t quiet her longing for home… until a chance encounter helps her see what she’s been missing.
Standalone novels
1977
Property Of
A lonely young woman falls hard for McKay, the dangerously magnetic leader of a violent street gang where the girls are literally considered the gang’s property.
1999
The Drowning Season
At a mysterious Long Island estate, a troubled family, a Russian gardener, and a mother who rules the household with an iron will become tangled in a dangerous summer of obsession.
1980
Angel Landing
A young woman lands in a strange California desert town and finds herself torn between two very different men while the landscape begins to work its own kind of magic.
1982
White Horses
A young woman raised on family legends becomes obsessed with the wild mythology of the American West as she dreams of escaping the life everyone has planned for her.
1985
Fortune’s Daughter
Rae is pregnant and desperate to escape her past when she meets Lila, a fortune-teller searching for the daughter she lost decades ago.
1987
Illumination Night
On Martha’s Vineyard, a teenage girl, an elderly woman, a blond giant, and a boy who mysteriously refuses to grow up collide during one very strange summer.
1988
At Risk
When eleven-year-old Amanda is diagnosed with AIDS, her Massachusetts family has to navigate fear, prejudice, and the terrifying possibility of losing the daughter who dreams of becoming a gymnast.
1990
Seventh Heaven
Nora Silk moves into a 1950s suburb with her children and no husband, and her refusal to fit the neighborhood’s rules has everyone, from teenagers to lonely housewives, watching her.
1992
Turtle Moon
A single mother, her twelve-year-old son, and the irresistible Julian Cash find themselves caught up in a strange Florida summer where runaway teenagers, sea turtles, and murder collide.
1994
Second Nature
After her divorce, Robin makes an impulsive decision: rescue a beautiful man raised in the wilderness from a psychiatric hospital and bring him home to suburban Connecticut.
1997
Here on Earth
March Murray returns to her Massachusetts hometown for a funeral and falls straight back under the spell of Hollis, the dangerous first love she thought she'd left behind.
1999
Local Girls
Gretel grows up in a Long Island family where marriages implode, cousins chase impossible love, brothers disappear, and everyone seems to be hiding something.
2000
The River King
When a student's body turns up in the river beside an elite boarding school, a detective starts digging into the school's beautiful facade—and discovers the dead boy wasn't its first tragedy.
2001
Blue Diary
Ethan Ford looks like the perfect husband and father until he disappears and his wife learns that the man she's loved for thirteen years has been hiding a horrifying secret.
2003
The Probable Future
The women of the Sparrow family inherit strange gifts, but when thirteen-year-old Stella discovers she can predict deaths, her power puts her father at the center of a murder investigation.
2004
Blackbird House
One Massachusetts farmhouse witnesses centuries of strange lives, forbidden loves, family tragedies, and ghosts as each generation leaves something behind.
2005
The Ice Queen
A woman jokingly wishes for lightning to strike her. When it actually happens, she survives with a strange new connection to another person who has also been struck.
2007
Skylight Confessions
Arlyn falls in love with a man she barely knows and moves into a glass house where ghosts, family curses, and generations of heartbreak refuse to stay buried.
2008
The Third Angel
Three women, three decades, and three disastrous love affairs converge in London, all connected by a mysterious woman named Lucy who believes an angel can save her.
2009
The Story Sisters
After one devastating night changes everything, sisters Elv and Meg grow apart, make very different choices, and spend years trying to find their way back to each other.
2011
The Red Garden
A strange Massachusetts town is populated by witches, ghosts, bears, mermaids, and generations of people who discover that Blackwell has a magic all its own.
2011
The Dovekeepers
At Masada, four women—a warrior, a healer, a mother, and an assassin's daughter—find themselves fighting to survive as the Romans close in.
2014
The Museum of Extraordinary Things
Coralie performs as a mermaid in her father's bizarre Coney Island museum, but when a young photographer starts investigating a disappearance, their worlds collide.
2015
The Marriage of Opposites
Rachel Pomié escapes an arranged marriage on the island of St. Thomas, only to fall scandalously in love with her much younger nephew and eventually become the mother of painter Camille Pissarro.
2017
Faithful
After surviving a car accident that leaves her best friend permanently injured, Shelby disappears from the world until a series of unexpected people and animals slowly pull her back into it.
2019
The World That We Knew
In Nazi-occupied Berlin, a desperate mother sends her twelve-year-old daughter away with a golem built to protect her, setting three young women on dangerous paths through wartime Europe.
2023
The Invisible Hour
Mia grows up in a Massachusetts cult where books are forbidden, but after discovering The Scarlet Letter, she falls for Nathaniel Hawthorne and discovers that books can literally transport her through time.
2026
The Witches of Cambridge
In 1950s Cambridge, a young woman stumbles into a hidden world of witches and discovers that the ordinary life she's been planning may not be the life she's meant to live.
Young adult novels
Alice Hoffman has also written several novels for younger readers, including stories filled with magic, friendship, survival, identity, and first love. Her YA books have the same atmospheric quality as her adult fiction while exploring the uncertainties and intensity of growing up.
Nonfiction
Alongside her fiction, Alice Hoffman has written nonfiction that offers a more personal look at her life, her experiences, and the people and subjects that have influenced her writing. Survival Lessons, published in 2013, is Hoffman’s personal account of being diagnosed with cancer, written as a reflection on illness, resilience, and finding ways to live fully in the midst of uncertainty.
Alice Hoffman series in order
Practical Magic Series
The Practical Magic books follow the Owens family, a line of witches whose lives have been shaped by an old family curse. The four novels span several generations, moving backward and forward through the family’s history.
Publication order follows the way Alice Hoffman released the books, while chronological order follows the story from the earliest generation of the Owens family to the latest.
Publication order (my recommendation):
Chronological order:
If this is your first time reading the series, I recommend publication order. It allows you to discover the Owens family the way Hoffman originally introduced them, while the chronological order is a fun option if you want to experience the family history from its earliest beginnings.
Once Upon a Time Bookshop Series
Alice Hoffman’s Once Upon a Time Bookshop Stories follows the Gibson family and their beloved family bookstore on Brinkley’s Island, Maine. The stories are connected, with Isabel, Sophie, Violet, and the people around them returning throughout the series. While each installment is short and can be enjoyed on its own, reading them in publication order gives you the fullest picture of the family’s relationships and evolving story.
The Bookstore Sisters (2022)
The Bookstore Wedding (2024)
The Bookstore Keepers (2025)
The Bookstore Family (2025)
The series is currently ongoing, with The Bookstore Family the latest installment.
Where should you start with Alice Hoffman?
If you’re reading Alice Hoffman for the first time, the best place to start depends on the kind of story you’re looking for.
Start with Practical Magic if you love:
witchy fiction
sister relationships
family curses
small-town settings
romance with a magical twist
Start with The Rules of Magic if you love:
magical family sagas
New York City settings
sibling relationships
stories about finding your place
a more romantic take on the Owens family
Start with The Dovekeepers if you love:
sweeping historical fiction
ancient settings
stories of women surviving against impossible odds
richly atmospheric storytelling
epic, emotional novels
Start with The Museum of Extraordinary Things if you love:
historical fiction with a touch of the unusual
New York City
mysterious characters
romance
stories set around real historical events
Start with The Invisible Hour if you love:
books about books
time travel
forbidden love
secretive communities
magical realism
Alice Hoffman adaptations
Alice Hoffman’s stories have inspired several memorable adaptations, with Practical Magic becoming by far her most recognizable screen success.
Practical Magic
The 1998 film adaptation stars Sandra Bullock and Nicole Kidman as sisters Sally and Gillian Owens, two witches from a family that has been cursed in love for generations.
The movie developed a devoted following of its own, becoming one of those films that readers and viewers return to year after year. The Owens family is also heading back to the big screen with Practical Magic 2, based on Hoffman’s The Book of Magic.
The Dovekeepers
Alice Hoffman’s historical novel The Dovekeepers was adapted into a CBS miniseries in 2015, bringing the story of four women living at Masada during the Roman siege to television.
The Museum of Extraordinary Things
Hoffman’s The Museum of Extraordinary Things was adapted into a 2014 film starring Michael Cera and Lena Dunham. Set in turn-of-the-century New York, the story brings together a mysterious sideshow attraction, two unusual young people, and a city on the brink of dramatic change.
Authors like Alice Hoffman
If you love Alice Hoffman’s mix of magic, history, complicated women, family relationships, and beautifully atmospheric storytelling, you may also enjoy authors who blur the line between the ordinary and the extraordinary.
Explore:
Alice Hoffman book club questions & reading guides
Alice Hoffman’s books make wonderful book club choices because there is usually much more going on beneath the surface. Her stories can spark conversations about family, love, women’s lives, history, fate, and the choices that shape generations.
Explore book club resources for:
Alice Hoffman bookish merchandise
Looking for a gift for an Alice Hoffman fan? The Practical Magic books in particular have inspired plenty of witchy and literary gifts, from book-themed décor to items celebrating the beloved Owens sisters.
Popular ideas include:
Frequently asked questions
Do you need to read Alice Hoffman’s books in order?
No. Most of Alice Hoffman’s novels are standalone stories, so you can start with whichever book catches your attention. The main exception is the Practical Magic series, which is best read in order if you want to follow the Owens family across generations.
What order should I read the Practical Magic books?
The Practical Magic books are best read in publication order: Practical Magic, The Rules of Magic, Magic Lessons, and The Book of Magic. Together, they trace the history of the Owens family and the curse that has followed them for generations.
What is Alice Hoffman’s best book?
Practical Magic is probably the best place to start if you want to experience the book that made Hoffman a household name, but there is no single obvious choice for every reader. The Dovekeepers, The Museum of Extraordinary Things, The Rules of Magic, and The Invisible Hour are all good starting points depending on your reading tastes.
What is Alice Hoffman’s newest book?
The Witches of Cambridge is Alice Hoffman’s newest novel, published in September 2026. Set in 1950s Cambridge, Massachusetts, it follows two young women who become involved with a secret society of witches at Radcliffe known as the Lilith Society.
About Alice Hoffman
Alice Hoffman is the bestselling author of more than thirty works of fiction, including Practical Magic, The Dovekeepers, The Museum of Extraordinary Things, The Rules of Magic, The World That We Knew, and The Invisible Hour.
Her books are difficult to fit neatly into a single genre. Some are historical novels, some are magical realism, some contain witches and curses, and others are firmly rooted in the everyday world. What connects them is Hoffman’s fascination with the extraordinary things that can happen in ordinary lives.
Her stories often place women at the center of complicated worlds, whether they are surviving war, falling in love, carrying family secrets, discovering unexpected powers, or simply trying to find their place. That combination of emotional storytelling and a little bit of magic has made her one of the most distinctive voices in contemporary fiction.
And for readers who discovered Hoffman through Practical Magic, there is still plenty more to discover beyond the Owens family.