Here on Earth Author:Alice Hoffman In a review of Hoffman's previous novel, Practical Magic, Booklist wrote, "magic, fantasy, and full-tilt love-at-first-sight have figured in all of Hoffman's sexy, funny, and endearing novelsin Hoffman's universe, all boundaries between inner and outer realms are erased. Fear brings whipping winds, a malevolent spirit causes lilac... more » bushes to achieve monstrous proportions, and love turns the air sweet and golden, melts butter, and makes everyone giddy." In Here on Earth, the darker, obsessive side of love is revealed in all of its power, and with all the havoc it wreaks. After nearly twenty years of living in California, March Murray, along with her fifteen-year-old daughter, Gwen, returns to the sleepy Massachusetts town where she grew up to attend the funeral of Judith Dale, the beloved housekeeper who raised her. Yet returning to her hometown also brings her back to Hollis, March's former soul mate and lover. March's father had taken the teenaged Hollis, an abandoned child, and the product of a series of detention homes, into his house as a boarder, and treated him like a son. Yet March and Hollis's passionate love was hardly a normal sibling relationship. When Hollis left her after a petty fight, March waited for him three long years, wondering what she had done wrong. Encountering Hollis again makes March acutely aware of the choices that she has made, and the choices everyone around her has made--including Mrs. Dale, who knew more of love than March could ever have suspected, and her brother Alan, whose tragic history has left him grief-struck, with alcohol as his only solace. Her attraction to Hollis is overwhelming and March jeopardizes her marriage, her relationship with her daughter and her own happiness in an attempt to reclaim the past. "Hoffman conveys the mesmerizing lure of a lost love with haunting sensuality," Publishers Weekly, said in an advance review and Library Journal said: "Hoffman takes great care here to examine the many facets of love and relationships, turning them like a prism to reflect on March and Hollis." With Here on Earth , Alice Hoffman achieves once again the "iridescent prose, taut narrative suspense and alluring atmosphere" that The Boston Globe cites as her hallmark. Erotic, disturbing and compelling, this is without a doubt Alice Hoffman's most unforgettable novel.« less
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At first I thought this was going to be a predictable "man versus nature" diatribe with nature winning, but actually had more complexity to it. An enjoyable read.
Very thought-provoking; most typical of Hoffman's work. The book is well-written; characterization is done well. Anyone who enjoyed her other works will surely love this one. I highly recommend it.
I love Alice Hoffman's writing style, but I don't think this was one of her best books. The ending was a surprise and still left you kind of hanging. I liked Ice Queen a lot better. This book was not a romance by any means, but it was a very sexual book.
It's funny that I loved this book as much as I did, seeing as how I despise Wuthering Heights. Alice Hoffman's book is a modern take on Wuthering Heights, but where Bronte's book failed to get me to care for ANY of the characters, I loved the one I met in Here on Earth. The heartbreak, the hope, and the love are evident with each turn of the page.