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She wondered what it would feel like to be in love without holding anything back, to give everything you were to another person and expect everything in return.
Stone-heart, cold-heart, no-heart, biggest heart he had ever known. The red-haired girl who saved him time and time again, who knew him when no one else did. Her love was the fiercest part about her.
Vincent remembered what William had told him on the last day of his life. Be in love. It won’t take anything away from us. And it hadn’t.
“I didn’t know if I’d ever see you again,” David told him when he arrived. Vincent laughed. “I think you knew.” “Hoping isn’t knowing.” “Isn’t it?” Vincent had said.
Vincent sat in the sunlight, where he removed his tie and his jacket and grinned at David, who was so enamored of America he was wearing a Red Sox cap. Oh, how Vincent wished he could tell his sisters how unexpected everything was. He wished they could sit down at the table, today, in the sunlight, so that he could tell them everything. Once, a long time ago, before we knew who we were, we thought we wanted to be like everyone else. How lucky to be exactly who we were.
Now he had stepped forward blindly into love, a madman and a fool and proud to be so.
Gillian had always had an open heart, but Sally had been convinced that she was born to love no one, and that no one would love her. Then she had come to the house on Magnolia Street and she’d taken her mean aunt’s hand and her heart had cracked open, just a little, but a little was enough.
“Will we have to pay a price for being happy?” “Everyone does. That’s what it means to be alive.”
“What do you think it all means?” Gillian asked. “It means that no matter what, we will never be normal,” Sally said cheerfully. “With or without magic.” “Never,” Gillian agreed.
Once upon a time they were as different as night and day, but that had changed. Each had what they’d wished for most. How lucky they’d been to be raised by women who taught them what was most important in this world. Read as many books as you can. Choose courage over caution. Take time to visit libraries. Look for light in the darkness. Have faith in yourself. Know that love is what matters most.
Hudson, John. Shakespeare’s Dark Lady. Gloucestershire, UK: Amberley Publishing, 2014, 2016. A fascinating book which gives a very convincing argument that Bassano was, indeed, the playwright.
LIST OF BOOKS This novel begins and ends in a library, and you may have noticed that within these pages I mention many book titles. These are some of my favorite books, and I wanted to share the full list with you here. If you look carefully, you may find other references to the books I love within the text and many magic reference books. Thank you to the authors of these beautiful books that changed my life every time I walked into a library. The Poems of Emily Dickinson Wuthering Heights, Emily Brontë Jane Eyre, Charlotte Brontë Wide Sargasso Sea, Jean Rhys Little Women, Louisa May Alcott
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The Book of Magic is a breathtaking conclusion that celebrates mothers and daughters, sisters and brothers, and anyone who has ever been in love.
Do you have any recipes which act as magic in your own home or family?
“Love was inside every story,” Franny thinks toward the end of the novel. Discuss the different ways and different types—familial, romantic, mania, etc.—of love in this book and how it shaped the story.
Do you ever have chocolate cake for breakfast? AH: Whenever possible!
AH: My favorite line is the first line of the novel, “Some stories begin at the beginning and others begin at the end, but all the best stories begin in a library.”
