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Fortune's Daughter
This fierce and beautiful story charts the histories of two women: Rae, young and unmarried and far from home, awaits the birth of her first child. Lila, a fortune-teller with no interest in the future, has lost her own daughter more than a quarter of a century earlier in New York. When these two women meet in Southern California it’s Earthquake Weather – the time when unexpected things happen. Immediately, their lives and fortunes become intertwined, as Rae tries to break away from the man she has been with since high school and Lila reaches into the past to search for the child she lost.
This contemporary world is set against a series of Russian folktales told by an old woman who lives at the edge of Manhattan, in a place so well hidden it can only be found once in a life-time.
This contemporary world is set against a series of Russian folktales told by an old woman who lives at the edge of Manhattan, in a place so well hidden it can only be found once in a life-time.
324 pages, Kindle Edition
First published April 1, 1985
596 people are currently reading
4160 people want to read
About the author
Alice Hoffman
119 books25.2k followersAlice Hoffman is the author of more than thirty works of fiction, including The World That We Knew; The Marriage of Opposites; The Red Garden; The Museum of Extraordinary Things; The Dovekeepers; Here on Earth, an Oprah’s Book Club selection; and the Practical Magic series, including Practical
Magic; Magic Lessons; The Rules of Magic, a selection of Reese’s Book Club; and The Book of Magic. She lives near Boston.
Magic; Magic Lessons; The Rules of Magic, a selection of Reese’s Book Club; and The Book of Magic. She lives near Boston.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 408 reviews
February 22, 2008
I have long been an Alice Hoffman fan, but with such a prolific catalog from which to choose, I had always read primarily from her more recent work. I started with Practical Magic, then bounced to Blue Diary, which was the most recent at the time, and just kept reading. Fortune's Daughter, on the other hand, one of Hoffman's earlier works, lacks the pizazz of her more recent novels. The magic of everyday life is lost in the more traditional female characters of the early 80s. You want to shake one of the main characters and tell her to get her life in order, and wonder why a man has dictated so much of her youth. The other protagonist just needs to be dropped into therapy.
However, this book is not a total washout.
As ever, Hoffman's prose is for the most part, a delight. Her devotion to location, description of climate and flora, as well as simple, everyday fancy does neatly embroider a mostly mediocre novel.
For those just beginning to read Hoffman, I'd start with something a bit more polished, such as The Probable Future, The Blackbird House, or, my favorite, Practical Magic.
However, this book is not a total washout.
As ever, Hoffman's prose is for the most part, a delight. Her devotion to location, description of climate and flora, as well as simple, everyday fancy does neatly embroider a mostly mediocre novel.
For those just beginning to read Hoffman, I'd start with something a bit more polished, such as The Probable Future, The Blackbird House, or, my favorite, Practical Magic.
January 25, 2013
I'm surprised by the number of negative reviews for this novel. This is actually the first Hoffman novel I read all the way through.
First of all, the writing is breathtaking. _I_ want to write like this. The interweaving of image, especially nature image, with character and action inspires.
Second, the characters all carry pain, even the "bad boy" with the "good girl." And no one is that one-dimensional. The "good" girl is not always good. The "bad" boy is not always bad. And the attempts to connect and reconnect, even when they don't want to, show their desire to overcome the pain of the past and move into a more functional future. The fortune teller who overcomes all her own impulses to the contrary to make herself available to a single girl facing childbirth alone is an excellent example of this.
And last, I understand that some may find these women "typically eighties," or stereotypical. But, look, folks, our culture has jumped light years in a woman's ability to do for herself and for her children on her own. I always want to urge others to be more forgiving of female characters in stories set decades ago. I suspect it was harder than we think.
First of all, the writing is breathtaking. _I_ want to write like this. The interweaving of image, especially nature image, with character and action inspires.
Second, the characters all carry pain, even the "bad boy" with the "good girl." And no one is that one-dimensional. The "good" girl is not always good. The "bad" boy is not always bad. And the attempts to connect and reconnect, even when they don't want to, show their desire to overcome the pain of the past and move into a more functional future. The fortune teller who overcomes all her own impulses to the contrary to make herself available to a single girl facing childbirth alone is an excellent example of this.
And last, I understand that some may find these women "typically eighties," or stereotypical. But, look, folks, our culture has jumped light years in a woman's ability to do for herself and for her children on her own. I always want to urge others to be more forgiving of female characters in stories set decades ago. I suspect it was harder than we think.
December 2, 2017
I’ve just finished another wonderful Alice Hoffman novel. This version of Fortune’s Daughter was an audiobook by Blackstone Audio, narrated by Carrington McDuffie.
2 women, Rae, a young unwed pregnant woman whose boyfriend seems to have less than a full deck, meets Lila, a fortune teller who is older and married. Their lives become intertwined when Rae asked Lila to tell her fortune. The story weaves between present and past of each in a way only Alice Hoffman can tell it.
I can always count on a wonderful read by Hoffman and my expectations are always met. Characters come to life on the page and the story builds with insight and intrigue at the same time to keep the reader’s attention and wanting more. After finishing this novel, I feel as though I have been on a journey knowing Rae and Lila as friends, and I’m better off to have met them.
2 women, Rae, a young unwed pregnant woman whose boyfriend seems to have less than a full deck, meets Lila, a fortune teller who is older and married. Their lives become intertwined when Rae asked Lila to tell her fortune. The story weaves between present and past of each in a way only Alice Hoffman can tell it.
I can always count on a wonderful read by Hoffman and my expectations are always met. Characters come to life on the page and the story builds with insight and intrigue at the same time to keep the reader’s attention and wanting more. After finishing this novel, I feel as though I have been on a journey knowing Rae and Lila as friends, and I’m better off to have met them.
March 2, 2022
Despite the title, this is as much a story about mothers as it is about daughters. It is a story about the heartbreak of mothering and the loss of daughters. And then those daughters become mothers. The circle continues.
Written by Alice Hoffman, this is the story of two women: Rae and Lila. Rae Perry is a defiant teenager from a well-off Newton, Massachusetts home with a mostly-absent, career-obsessed father and a mother who is trying her best but not succeeding. Rae is madly, hopelessly in love with Jessup, four years her senior and the quintessential bad boy. They run away before Rae finishes high school and after five states in seven years, they end up in Southern California. And it is here that Rae's life forever changes—with or without Jessup. Meanwhile, 40-something Lila Grey is happily married to Richard, but she harbors deep-seated secrets about her past, secrets she vows Richard will never know. Because if he ever found out what she had done when she was 18, he couldn't possibly love her. But when Lila, who dabbles in fortune-telling, meets Rae, those secrets erupt inside Lila's soul and their fire will not be tamed.
Originally published in 1985, this is the fifth novel Hoffman wrote. She is known for magical realism, and this book has far less of that than later novels. Instead, it's a light brush of magic—so light that you might even miss it if you're not looking for it.
This is an imaginative and beautifully written twist on the age-old story of mothers and daughters, the love and the distrust, the hope and the sorrows.
It is a haunting and wise and wondrous novel.
Written by Alice Hoffman, this is the story of two women: Rae and Lila. Rae Perry is a defiant teenager from a well-off Newton, Massachusetts home with a mostly-absent, career-obsessed father and a mother who is trying her best but not succeeding. Rae is madly, hopelessly in love with Jessup, four years her senior and the quintessential bad boy. They run away before Rae finishes high school and after five states in seven years, they end up in Southern California. And it is here that Rae's life forever changes—with or without Jessup. Meanwhile, 40-something Lila Grey is happily married to Richard, but she harbors deep-seated secrets about her past, secrets she vows Richard will never know. Because if he ever found out what she had done when she was 18, he couldn't possibly love her. But when Lila, who dabbles in fortune-telling, meets Rae, those secrets erupt inside Lila's soul and their fire will not be tamed.
Originally published in 1985, this is the fifth novel Hoffman wrote. She is known for magical realism, and this book has far less of that than later novels. Instead, it's a light brush of magic—so light that you might even miss it if you're not looking for it.
This is an imaginative and beautifully written twist on the age-old story of mothers and daughters, the love and the distrust, the hope and the sorrows.
It is a haunting and wise and wondrous novel.
December 29, 2012
When I read this, I was ready for another Alice Hoffman book. She takes the ordinary world, makes it completely awful, and then pulls all of the magic and wonder out of it, like a magician pulling a rabbit from a hat. I have several Alice Hoffman books on my sagging Kindle bookshelves and not sure what made me pick this one next, but it was a perfect read for the moment that I was in.
I wonder how much my response to a book has to do with the moment I pick it up in time and start reading it. Like if I gave a book 5 stars when I read it on December 21, 2012 would I have given it 5 stars if I'd read it on March 12, 2009? I don't know. One of life's little mysteries. But--and I am sure all avid readers agree--there's something cosmic about closing your eyes, picking your next read from your heart, and then...ah, yes, those 5 stars.
Fortune's Daughter is a humble book. No dystopia end of the world serial killer vampire werewolf zombie apocalypse. Just a simple tale of unresolved grief and mothers who've lost daughters and daughters who've lost mothers and the men who love them in the best ways that they can. I loved the whole tea-reading-fortune-telling thing and Rae and Lila are interesting within their world's that lack--completely--celebrity and fame or anything very sparkly. Just living their lives. And finding their own magic within them.
I will leave you with this line ... that upon reading it...made me smile and nod because, after all is said and done, life is a mysterious thing...
Into this cake Lila had baked three gifts: a cool hand to test for fevers, a kiss with the power to chase away nightmares, a heart that can tell when it's time to let go.
I wonder how much my response to a book has to do with the moment I pick it up in time and start reading it. Like if I gave a book 5 stars when I read it on December 21, 2012 would I have given it 5 stars if I'd read it on March 12, 2009? I don't know. One of life's little mysteries. But--and I am sure all avid readers agree--there's something cosmic about closing your eyes, picking your next read from your heart, and then...ah, yes, those 5 stars.
Fortune's Daughter is a humble book. No dystopia end of the world serial killer vampire werewolf zombie apocalypse. Just a simple tale of unresolved grief and mothers who've lost daughters and daughters who've lost mothers and the men who love them in the best ways that they can. I loved the whole tea-reading-fortune-telling thing and Rae and Lila are interesting within their world's that lack--completely--celebrity and fame or anything very sparkly. Just living their lives. And finding their own magic within them.
I will leave you with this line ... that upon reading it...made me smile and nod because, after all is said and done, life is a mysterious thing...
Into this cake Lila had baked three gifts: a cool hand to test for fevers, a kiss with the power to chase away nightmares, a heart that can tell when it's time to let go.
January 9, 2023
An early gem, published in 1985, from this prolific, amazingly gifted novelist. A juxtaposition between the lives of two ladies: Rae, a young, unmarried woman, with an off again, on again relationship with her boyfriend, who has once again deserted her when he finds out she is pregnant with his baby, and Lila, a middled-aged, married lady who still regrets the baby she was forced to give up for adoption when she was eighteen years old.
Full with an abundance of nature and its relationship to human behavior, a heavy touch of the supernatural and the reading of fortunes through tea leaves, and at its center an amazingly powerful story of the love between a child and its mother and how the lost (death) of a child is a sorrow that a mother never gets over. Beautifully written!!!!!!!
Full with an abundance of nature and its relationship to human behavior, a heavy touch of the supernatural and the reading of fortunes through tea leaves, and at its center an amazingly powerful story of the love between a child and its mother and how the lost (death) of a child is a sorrow that a mother never gets over. Beautifully written!!!!!!!
February 24, 2009
I love Alice Hoffman! Her prose is like poetry. I was introduced to her about ten years ago by a friend. It was Practical Magic. Some of her plots are better than others but the imagery of her words never fails to capture me.
December 21, 2018
I've read a number of Alice Hoffman's books over the years. I love her writing with it's magical images. She has a beautiful way of describing places and atmosphere. This was so far my least favorite of her stories. I found the characters maddening. Their endless suffering because of the bad choices they made in their lives got to be tiresome.
It is about two women who have ended up in California after running away from their New England lives for their separate reasons. Rae, a young woman with a loser boyfriend that she slaves to please finds herself pregnant and alone. Lila, a woman in her fifties who lost a child I wasn't very happy with the ending.
It is about two women who have ended up in California after running away from their New England lives for their separate reasons. Rae, a young woman with a loser boyfriend that she slaves to please finds herself pregnant and alone. Lila, a woman in her fifties who lost a child I wasn't very happy with the ending.
September 19, 2020
This is an early Hoffman that I had never read before. (If it had been my first, I would not have read most everything she has written since.) The magic is there, even when it misfires.
There is considerable evidence of the excellent writer Hoffman will become—the magic realism, the gorgeous language, but so many, so dear, so strong, so sharp, so beautiful . . . so many phrases beginning with "so" that I found myself counting them. One SO on most pages, some pages with two or even three. The construction most often was appealing, but like the convoluted plot, seemed to complicate itself unnecessarily.
And the end, while gorgeous in language did not displease me. I was not quite convinced. Instead I wondered what sort of mess her personal life was in that she chose this trajectory.
Kirkus Reviews calls the main characters in this 1990 novel "blurry, murmurous" but TNYT seems to have liked it, terming it "lush" and "mythical" and swirling in a "juxtaposition of the mythic, the apocalyptic, with the resolutely ordinary . . . " I might agree with both, and also found it convoluted, messy, and unfocused—a novel where characters thrash without necessarily getting very far, not even in the narrative sense. Some back stories, delivered far too late in the narrative, were touching but beside the point.
Nevertheless, I am happy to have read the novel and I will put it back on my shelf where it has been stored since my mother died. She purchased Hoffman's entire backlist without actually reading these hardbacks from the 80s. It was my mother who first handed me Practical Magic when it first came out in paper. I read others and my favorite in those days was Seventh Heaven. I recall nothing about that novel and I suppose I should reread it to discover if it still appeals to me in the same way. I have loved everything from her I read recently, both the historical and contemporary Faithless.
update on 19 September 2020: Last night I searched my shelves for something hopeful to read after learning of the death of RBG. This one struck me again just as it did the first time.
There is considerable evidence of the excellent writer Hoffman will become—the magic realism, the gorgeous language, but so many, so dear, so strong, so sharp, so beautiful . . . so many phrases beginning with "so" that I found myself counting them. One SO on most pages, some pages with two or even three. The construction most often was appealing, but like the convoluted plot, seemed to complicate itself unnecessarily.
And the end, while gorgeous in language did not displease me. I was not quite convinced. Instead I wondered what sort of mess her personal life was in that she chose this trajectory.
Kirkus Reviews calls the main characters in this 1990 novel "blurry, murmurous" but TNYT seems to have liked it, terming it "lush" and "mythical" and swirling in a "juxtaposition of the mythic, the apocalyptic, with the resolutely ordinary . . . " I might agree with both, and also found it convoluted, messy, and unfocused—a novel where characters thrash without necessarily getting very far, not even in the narrative sense. Some back stories, delivered far too late in the narrative, were touching but beside the point.
Nevertheless, I am happy to have read the novel and I will put it back on my shelf where it has been stored since my mother died. She purchased Hoffman's entire backlist without actually reading these hardbacks from the 80s. It was my mother who first handed me Practical Magic when it first came out in paper. I read others and my favorite in those days was Seventh Heaven. I recall nothing about that novel and I suppose I should reread it to discover if it still appeals to me in the same way. I have loved everything from her I read recently, both the historical and contemporary Faithless.
update on 19 September 2020: Last night I searched my shelves for something hopeful to read after learning of the death of RBG. This one struck me again just as it did the first time.
March 2, 2023
Overall: ☆☆☆(3.2)
Writing style: ☆☆☆
Entertainment ☆☆☆☆
Characters ☆☆
Plot: ☆☆☆☆
Ending:☆☆☆
Leila and Rachel meet, when Rachel gets her tea leaves read at a local shop. Two women who seemly are so different (one is younger, the other middle aged. One has a terrible boyfriend, the other a loving husband.), find that they have much in common in the way of searching for fulfillment.
The characters were not my favorite. I don't think I felt connected to any of them, aside from Leila, as I personally connected with her story and her loss. Otherwise, if it weren't for that, I'd have to say all the characters are a little kooky 🤪
This book had several moments where i connected with it very deeply and other moments where I felt very disconnected. It almost felt like reading a different book at times.
Additionally, this one has some strong trigger warnings. I'm not usually one for trigger warnings, but this one may need it for child loss and suicide ideations.
Otherwise, I am a biased fan of Alice Hoffman, so I enjoyed this earlier work of hers.
Writing style: ☆☆☆
Entertainment ☆☆☆☆
Characters ☆☆
Plot: ☆☆☆☆
Ending:☆☆☆
Leila and Rachel meet, when Rachel gets her tea leaves read at a local shop. Two women who seemly are so different (one is younger, the other middle aged. One has a terrible boyfriend, the other a loving husband.), find that they have much in common in the way of searching for fulfillment.
The characters were not my favorite. I don't think I felt connected to any of them, aside from Leila, as I personally connected with her story and her loss. Otherwise, if it weren't for that, I'd have to say all the characters are a little kooky 🤪
This book had several moments where i connected with it very deeply and other moments where I felt very disconnected. It almost felt like reading a different book at times.
Additionally, this one has some strong trigger warnings. I'm not usually one for trigger warnings, but this one may need it for child loss and suicide ideations.
Otherwise, I am a biased fan of Alice Hoffman, so I enjoyed this earlier work of hers.
March 24, 2016
Alice Hoffman is one of my favorite authors, so I was eager to tackle this one, and yet, meh. Two mothers, one who put her daughter up for adoption and has carried the secret with her (Lila), and one who is facing an unplanned pregnancy (Rae) have their lives interwoven through serendipitous means. This is a tale of tragedy, hope, and forgiveness, and how small missteps can irrevocably change the lives of our protagonists, and those around them.
Magical realism is usually my jam, but I found these elements this time around to be forced and, well, kind of annoying. I was unable to suspend my disbelief enough for some of the more far-fetched devices, and instead of relating to the characters and pulling for them I found myself rolling my eyes and speed reading.
Also, I have a real issue when people in relationships ice out their partner, it's just a button with me, so as Lila tries to face her demons alone, I just wanted to shake her. Tell your super nice and understanding husband!!! Also, watching Rae wallow in a bad relationship made me very tired, another button with me.
Similar to my recent read of Rebecca Wells I have found that maybe my tastes have changed. I have taken over the past few years to reading three books at once: I have grown to like the variety, and it lights a proverbial fire under me to keep going. That being said, I fear that maybe that fire has grown too bright, so I have turned reading into more of a chore than a leisure activity so I'm going to downgrade it a little and see if it changes how I feel about the books I have read.
Magical realism is usually my jam, but I found these elements this time around to be forced and, well, kind of annoying. I was unable to suspend my disbelief enough for some of the more far-fetched devices, and instead of relating to the characters and pulling for them I found myself rolling my eyes and speed reading.
Also, I have a real issue when people in relationships ice out their partner, it's just a button with me, so as Lila tries to face her demons alone, I just wanted to shake her. Tell your super nice and understanding husband!!! Also, watching Rae wallow in a bad relationship made me very tired, another button with me.
Similar to my recent read of Rebecca Wells I have found that maybe my tastes have changed. I have taken over the past few years to reading three books at once: I have grown to like the variety, and it lights a proverbial fire under me to keep going. That being said, I fear that maybe that fire has grown too bright, so I have turned reading into more of a chore than a leisure activity so I'm going to downgrade it a little and see if it changes how I feel about the books I have read.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
November 27, 2016
I picked this up from Hollings Cancer Center's book sale shelf, conned by a reprinting into thinking this was a new Hoffman, rather than an old one decked out in a new cover. On the one hand, I can see elements of Hoffman's style, which she has honed and crafted into a wondrous thing, richly adored by so many readers (myself included). On the other hand, there were some already tired themes (good girl/bad guy ; rejection) that filled the pages. It's a book about loss, in many forms, a theme I just don't really care to read right now. I didn't particularly like any of the characters, nor did I particularly care what happened to them, but still trundled through to the end. (The one exception was I did want to learn more about the old fortune teller's heritage and village-- sounds like that's where Hoffman's magic was hiding.)
I live in the south where there actually is a hurricane season, but have always been told by relatives in California that earthquakes can occur at any time of the year and at any time of the day or night, under all weather conditions, sunny, wet, hot, or cold--without special tendency. So what the hell is earthquake weather, which the first sentence of the book proclaims? "It was earthquake weather and everyone knew it."
I live in the south where there actually is a hurricane season, but have always been told by relatives in California that earthquakes can occur at any time of the year and at any time of the day or night, under all weather conditions, sunny, wet, hot, or cold--without special tendency. So what the hell is earthquake weather, which the first sentence of the book proclaims? "It was earthquake weather and everyone knew it."
September 9, 2017
Two women's lives collide. Rae followed her boyfriend to California. After he leaves her, she discovers she is pregnant. The only person she can confide in is a psychic. She does not know that the psychic, Lila, has forged a similar path. She does not want Rae to look to her for help, as it opens up wounds in her past that have never entirely healed.
Do you like flawed protagonists? Lila as a protagonist is as flawed as they come. In her efforts to flee the pain of her past, she causes a lot of heartache to people who care about her. Her attempts to push people away could easily be mistaken for cruelty. Rae is not exactly idealized, either. The people who weave in and out of the two women's lives are a fascinating mix.
The third person narrative skates deftly from the present to the past to the tangential past as we look back at Lila's memories. Rae's past gets less focus. The story ends a little too soon, and not all is resolved, though the book definitely leaves a deep impression of the characters' lives.
Do you like flawed protagonists? Lila as a protagonist is as flawed as they come. In her efforts to flee the pain of her past, she causes a lot of heartache to people who care about her. Her attempts to push people away could easily be mistaken for cruelty. Rae is not exactly idealized, either. The people who weave in and out of the two women's lives are a fascinating mix.
The third person narrative skates deftly from the present to the past to the tangential past as we look back at Lila's memories. Rae's past gets less focus. The story ends a little too soon, and not all is resolved, though the book definitely leaves a deep impression of the characters' lives.
July 4, 2016
If I'd rated Fortune's Daughter the moment I finished it, I would have given it 5 stars. I was completely engrossed and rather weepy by the end. But, having thought about it for a day, there are several points I wish had been wrapped up a little neater. It felt like a lot of things were left unresolved. Still, Alice Hoffman's unbelievable talent always leaves me humbled.
February 21, 2018
Felt like there was too much nonessential narrative. In the midst of scenes and conversations, the author goes off on tangents that don't add anything to the story loved the relationships, though - how the characters dealt with one another
February 4, 2020
This is probably my least favorite of all the Hoffman books I've read and enjoyed. I didn't care much for the characters, which ruined it for me. And it ended way too abruptly, without a real resolution in my opinion. I'd give it a 2.5 and I wouldn't recommend it.
August 1, 2018
don't let this be your first alice hoffman novel. while it's an ok story, it lacks the usual magical realism that she usually brings to the table. 2 women suffer because of 2 different things , and while it's a sad, interesting story, it is not among her best. i usually can connect with all of her characters in some way, but not with rae or lila. both of them are idiots and there wasn't much about them that i liked. i didn't highlight any passages, which is rare for me as her writing is usually like poetry.
nevertheless, i plan on owning a copy of every book she has ever written, whether it's a 1 or 5 star book! love you, ah.
nevertheless, i plan on owning a copy of every book she has ever written, whether it's a 1 or 5 star book! love you, ah.
May 9, 2018
Listening to the audiobook, I found it hard to recognize the time transitions. Perhaps the written version has different typeface or some other way of indicating that change? I found a lot of the events in this book to be mystical. And from the audio version, I did not get at all what the publisher says: "This contemporary world is set against a series of Russian folktales told by an old woman who lives at the edge of Manhattan, in a place so well hidden it can only be found once in a life-time. " Maybe that's where the mysticism comes in.
Carrington McDuffie does a really good job as narrator.
Carrington McDuffie does a really good job as narrator.
January 23, 2024
I was in between books and waiting for one and this book was available. I have liked some her books. This one though, wow, it was so . It ends with one of the main characters taking back her abusive boyfriend. That is not even close to the worst of it.
February 15, 2018
Lila and Rae, memorable characters. The strength and endurance of a mother's love.
Want to read
December 21, 2019Alice Hoffman The Collected Novels Volume One
July 16, 2023
Didn’t care for this one; felt disjointed and a bit confusing. Between the fortunes and pregnancies and stray dogs and women struggling to stay sane (it slips) during strange weather conditions (earthquakes) and on a strange bit of real estate, nothing is normal. I stuck with it, curious to see how it comes together, but the ending left me unsatisfied. Guess I’m not a fan of “magical realism” or “mystical fantasy”?
March 7, 2024
This would have been a 4 if it hadn’t been for that ending and some issues with a character letting their own trauma bulldoze others.
August 1, 2017
Not my favorite Hoffman, but still a decent listen as an audiobook.
December 13, 2020
That's the earliest Alice Hoffman I've read. It was good! No magic, which is fine, but I kept expecting it. 3.5 starts, rounded up.
May 13, 2017
"You don't understand," Lila said. The worst thing in the world for a mother is to leave her child. She couldn't bring herself to remember you, because if she did she'd have to leave you behind." (page 106)
"Out in the rain, Lila pulled her bathrobe tighter around herself. Somehow, she had become forty-six years old, and she didn't know quite how it had happened. She wondered if there was something about California that made the time move so quickly. Without winter to shock you into another year, entire seasons had dissolved in the sunshine; and no one could manage time in a place where even the roses were so confused that they bloomed year round." (page 107)
"Out in the rain, Lila pulled her bathrobe tighter around herself. Somehow, she had become forty-six years old, and she didn't know quite how it had happened. She wondered if there was something about California that made the time move so quickly. Without winter to shock you into another year, entire seasons had dissolved in the sunshine; and no one could manage time in a place where even the roses were so confused that they bloomed year round." (page 107)
March 5, 2017
*Thank you to NetGalley for the opportunity to read this book.*
I love Alice Hoffman books! This one definitely brought a story and characters to life in a beautiful way. This is a story full of heartbreak , sadness, and loss, but somehow still full of magic, hope, and joy at times. Fortune's Daughter tells the story of two different women, Rae and Lila. Rae is pregnant with her first child, is unmarried and ended up very far away from home. She left home as a teenager with her boyfriend Jessup and never returned. Jessup was not all she dreamed or hoped he really was. Lila is a fortune teller who is searching the daughter she lost many years ago. Both women carry a lot of pain and are very lonely. Together, their paths intertwine. I can't stay that I loved the main characters in this book - they are definitely flawed, complicated, and don't always make the best choices (or ones I agree with)- but they still felt real. The story flowed beautifully and the prose made the pages just go by quickly. It was easy to get pulled into this world. The plot was easy to follow and understand. The book is filled with magical and poetic descriptions that were not overdone at all. In the end, I wish there were some more loose ends that were tied, up, but it was really an enjoyable read overall.
I love Alice Hoffman books! This one definitely brought a story and characters to life in a beautiful way. This is a story full of heartbreak , sadness, and loss, but somehow still full of magic, hope, and joy at times. Fortune's Daughter tells the story of two different women, Rae and Lila. Rae is pregnant with her first child, is unmarried and ended up very far away from home. She left home as a teenager with her boyfriend Jessup and never returned. Jessup was not all she dreamed or hoped he really was. Lila is a fortune teller who is searching the daughter she lost many years ago. Both women carry a lot of pain and are very lonely. Together, their paths intertwine. I can't stay that I loved the main characters in this book - they are definitely flawed, complicated, and don't always make the best choices (or ones I agree with)- but they still felt real. The story flowed beautifully and the prose made the pages just go by quickly. It was easy to get pulled into this world. The plot was easy to follow and understand. The book is filled with magical and poetic descriptions that were not overdone at all. In the end, I wish there were some more loose ends that were tied, up, but it was really an enjoyable read overall.
March 14, 2020
The publisher's description of this book as "fierce and beautiful" is very accurate. It's intense and mystical and romantic and full of threatened violence. It's all real, but it also has a fantastical element because some of the women in the book believe they can see into the future or feel things so deeply from the past that the past is still alive to them.
The story primarily follows the life of Rae, a young woman who hooked up with a "bad boy" older guy while she was in high school, stole money from her mother, and fled home. She and the guy, Jessup, are on the road about 7 years later, still moving from town to town when he gets tired of doing a dead-end job in one place or another. He's mean to her but not violent. More like belittling and cruel, and with a threat of violence. She loves him, though it's not really clear why she would, except that it's a childhood infatuation that she never had a chance to outgrow because he is her entire life.
The descriptions of and the dialogue from the interactions of Rae and Jessup are among the best parts of the book. He's mean and cutting. She keeps thinking back to moments when he was either cruel or showed a glimmer of sweetness or weakness. It's tense always, and the author pulls you deeply into the mind of a sad person (Rae), who you just want to shake out of her fog.
The story starts with Rae and Jessup in the Los Angeles area. He's doing odd jobs for a film studio and claiming he wants to become a producer, which Rae knows will never happen, but is afraid to confront him about. She's working as an assistant for a kind man who's a distributor of art-house films. On the surface, all is okay in the sense that they're making their rent, they go to the beach on Sundays, and they have a life.
Of course, it's not enough. It's a bad relationship -- kind of like any of us have had in the month before a breakup, except that this is how they have lived for 7 years. She feels uncertain about Jessup and afraid he will leave her. She is totally dependent on him emotionally. He shows her nothing but contempt.
Then things blow up, and he leaves her. Not necessarily for another woman, though that's a possibility. It's mostly because he got tired of how secondary she was to him. Of course, that's what he insisted on, but people aren't always fair about their motives.
Anyway, Rae is struggling and she goes to a tea leaf reader nearby named Lila. We then learn about Lila's life, which parallels Rae's. Lila also moved from the NYC area to Los Angeles with a man, and that man is pretty much all of her life. However, they have a loving relationship that's deeply supportive even after 20 years. He's built them stability through opened an auto repair shop. The problem is that Lila has a secret she never told her husband, and it's been eating her alive for decades: the secret is that she had a baby girl at age 17 or so, and was forced to give her up for adoption.
The secret isn't the point -- which is why I mention it here -- but how the plague of having that secret has affected Lila's life, and how meeting Rae brings it back to the surface. You see, the minute that Lila sees Rae's tea leaves, she knows that Rae is pregnant. Rae isn't even sure. And all of Lila's repressed feelings fly back to the surface. And as those feelings return, we also learn about the mystical side of Lila through beautiful writing about how she sees the world, and what she learned about its mysteries from the woman who showed her how to read tea leaves.
The book moves along as Lila struggles with her feelings and Rae struggles with a pregnancy without the man she is devoted to. In a simple world, the two women would become best friends, Lila would spill her secret to Rae, and she would coach Rae to have a relationship with her daughter that Lila never had. But life doesn't work that way -- and that's as much as I'll say.
But because of Lila's visions, the book has an "Earth Mother" aspect that takes it beyond merely being a tale of two single women a generation apart who had kids without husbands. It's much more powerful than that.
The story primarily follows the life of Rae, a young woman who hooked up with a "bad boy" older guy while she was in high school, stole money from her mother, and fled home. She and the guy, Jessup, are on the road about 7 years later, still moving from town to town when he gets tired of doing a dead-end job in one place or another. He's mean to her but not violent. More like belittling and cruel, and with a threat of violence. She loves him, though it's not really clear why she would, except that it's a childhood infatuation that she never had a chance to outgrow because he is her entire life.
The descriptions of and the dialogue from the interactions of Rae and Jessup are among the best parts of the book. He's mean and cutting. She keeps thinking back to moments when he was either cruel or showed a glimmer of sweetness or weakness. It's tense always, and the author pulls you deeply into the mind of a sad person (Rae), who you just want to shake out of her fog.
The story starts with Rae and Jessup in the Los Angeles area. He's doing odd jobs for a film studio and claiming he wants to become a producer, which Rae knows will never happen, but is afraid to confront him about. She's working as an assistant for a kind man who's a distributor of art-house films. On the surface, all is okay in the sense that they're making their rent, they go to the beach on Sundays, and they have a life.
Of course, it's not enough. It's a bad relationship -- kind of like any of us have had in the month before a breakup, except that this is how they have lived for 7 years. She feels uncertain about Jessup and afraid he will leave her. She is totally dependent on him emotionally. He shows her nothing but contempt.
Then things blow up, and he leaves her. Not necessarily for another woman, though that's a possibility. It's mostly because he got tired of how secondary she was to him. Of course, that's what he insisted on, but people aren't always fair about their motives.
Anyway, Rae is struggling and she goes to a tea leaf reader nearby named Lila. We then learn about Lila's life, which parallels Rae's. Lila also moved from the NYC area to Los Angeles with a man, and that man is pretty much all of her life. However, they have a loving relationship that's deeply supportive even after 20 years. He's built them stability through opened an auto repair shop. The problem is that Lila has a secret she never told her husband, and it's been eating her alive for decades: the secret is that she had a baby girl at age 17 or so, and was forced to give her up for adoption.
The secret isn't the point -- which is why I mention it here -- but how the plague of having that secret has affected Lila's life, and how meeting Rae brings it back to the surface. You see, the minute that Lila sees Rae's tea leaves, she knows that Rae is pregnant. Rae isn't even sure. And all of Lila's repressed feelings fly back to the surface. And as those feelings return, we also learn about the mystical side of Lila through beautiful writing about how she sees the world, and what she learned about its mysteries from the woman who showed her how to read tea leaves.
The book moves along as Lila struggles with her feelings and Rae struggles with a pregnancy without the man she is devoted to. In a simple world, the two women would become best friends, Lila would spill her secret to Rae, and she would coach Rae to have a relationship with her daughter that Lila never had. But life doesn't work that way -- and that's as much as I'll say.
But because of Lila's visions, the book has an "Earth Mother" aspect that takes it beyond merely being a tale of two single women a generation apart who had kids without husbands. It's much more powerful than that.
January 29, 2025
Who is fortunes daughter?
Can you tell me by the end? I challenge you! This story was a little slow in beginning but somehow I could not stop reading. Hoffman's gift of interlacing elements is as present as ever!
Can you tell me by the end? I challenge you! This story was a little slow in beginning but somehow I could not stop reading. Hoffman's gift of interlacing elements is as present as ever!
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