About the book
In a rare and gorgeous departure, beloved novelist Alice Hoffman weaves a web of tales, all set in Blackbird House. This small farm on the outer reaches of Cape Cod is a place that is as bewitching and alive as the characters we meet: Violet, a brilliant girl who is in love with books and with a man destined to betray her; Lysander Wynn, attacked by a halibut as big as a horse, certain that his life is ruined until a boarder wearing red boots arrives to change everything; Maya Cooper, who does not understand the true meaning of the love between her mother and father until it is nearly too late. From the time of the British occupation of Massachusetts to our own modern world, family after family’s lives are inexorably changed, not only by the people they love but by the lives they lead inside Blackbird House. These interconnected narratives are as intelligent as they are haunting, as luminous as they are unusual. Inside Blackbird House more than a dozen men and women learn how love transforms us and how it is the one lasting element in our lives. The past both dissipates and remains contained inside the rooms of Blackbird House, where there are terrible secrets, inspired beauty, and, above all else, a spirit of coming home.
Reviewed by Shipton Bellinger WI Reading Group:
Some found this book fairly ordinary, but others really enjoyed it. More a collection of short stories than a novel, but it is very well written. We find American authors divide the group more than any others. Do you?
Star rating: ***
Hampshire Libraries 
Review by October Book Club:
We felt most of the individual stories/fairytales were very good. Reservations centred on how the stories linked or failed to link together. The book did not seem to know whether it was a novel or a collection of short stories. But the author has developed a rather lyrical style which will doubtless appeal to many readers.
Star rating: **
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Review by Abbotts Ann Reading Circle:
Almost like, short stories – most dissatisfying – NOT SUITABLE for reading groups – not enough substance.
Star rating: *
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