Book Reviews
Ms. Hoffman's trademark narrative voice is upbeat, breathless and rather bouncy. She creates vivid characters, she keeps things moving along, and she's not above using sleight of hand and prestidigitation to achieve her considerable effects. She plays tricks with the reader's expectations by suddenly shifting tenses or passing the point of view around the room like a football. At one brief but memorable juncture, we see things through the eyes of a magician's rabbit.
Mark Childress - New York Times Book Review
Magic, fantasy, and full-tilt love-at-first-sight have figured in all of Hoffman's sexy, funny, and endearing novels, but they blossom as they never have before in her latest effort, a tale about four generations of Massachusetts sisters.... Hoffman has created a cosmic romance leavened with just the right touch of pragmatism and humor.
Booklist
Her 11th novel is Hoffman's best since Illumination Night. Again a scrim of magic lies gently over her fictional world.... [T]here's plenty of steamy detail and a pervasive use of the f-word. The dialogue is always on target, particularly the squabbling between siblings, and, as usual, weather plays a portentous role. Readers will relish this magical tale.
Publishers Weekly
The book is reminiscent in places of Gwendolyn Brooks's tiny jewel of a poem, "Sadie and Maud," and even more of Sue Miller's poignant novel, For Love (1993). But even as Hoffman agrees with Brooks and Miller that "grief is everywhere," she administers that sweet antidote, a happy ending. Her women are possessed by love, and transformed.—Marya Fitzgerald, R.E. Lee High School, Springfield, VA
Library Journal