Hoffman once again creates magic through descriptive prose, placing you in the schoolroom with Stella, watching in horror as a fishbone protrudes from the throat of her approaching teacher. Then, in a cab on the way home, she must turn from the driver to avoid seeing his large tumor, so clearly visible in his skull.

To me, this novel served to ask the reader two larger questions: When do you decide not to trust someone you love? and Can you regain the trust of those you love in order to create a different future for yourself, when you've made grave and hurtful errors?

Loved this book! The characters are so good. I really hated to see it end. It is about the relationship between mothers and daughters during the years when a child is trying to become a woman and discovers she has been granted a special gift that has been handed down for generations. Each daughter on her 13th birthday receives a unique gift and it doesn't always seem like a blessing. Each one has a gift that sets them apart from all others. Combine that with trying to become an adult and trying to establish your own personality and it's fascinating and oh, so hard. I highly recommend this book! I will be looking for other books by this author.
Nancy

This book was written with such vivid description, I felt like I was right there in the house...I wish I was right there in the house. These women's ives were so clorful and full of mystery, I couldn't wait to find out the details of it all!

beautiful. Hoffman's typical themes of magic and optimism are present in the story.
i like Hoffman a lot, how she tells the story from multiple points of view, slipping seamlessly from character to character. i also love how her characters always learn from their mistakes, and how loss and disappointment lead to happier times.

I love Alice Hoffman and this book is wonderful!

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The Probable Future was a bewitching novel that captures your attention and doesn't release it until you finish the last page. It forces a person to ask many philosophical questions of themselves. I absolutely loved this book and could not put it down once I'd started it. When I wasn't reading it, I found myself thinking about it, and where the story was going. I reccomend this book to people who are looking for a novel that examines relationships and throws a little magic in for good measure.

The Probable Future opens in familiar Alice Hoffman territory: in a New England town, Jenny Sparrow frets over the legacy her daughter Stella will receive upon waking on her thirteenth birthday. All Sparrow woman - and they are all women - find their one "talent", always something magical or supernatural, on this day. The first Sparrow, Rebecca, could not feel pain while Jenny's mother Elinor can instantly detect a lie. Jenny herself dreams other people's dreams. In true Hoffman fashion, the gift Stella receives affects not only the direction of her life but of those who love her - Jenny, Elinor, Jenny's errant ex-husband Will; Will's brother Matt; Liza, the owner of the town tea house; Hap, Stella's new best friend; and Brock Stewart, Elinor's doctor and companion.

While parts of this novel are groaningly familiar, Hoffman deftly moves from these moments to something more solid and truthful. The author has her own gift, that of confident narration. Her characterizations are memorably detailed, with the portrayal of Brock Stewart perhaps the most touching I have encountered in her fiction. Unlike in Turtle Moon and Practical Magic, the magic realism here is not as much a crucial part of the story as it is an overlay. Even though Stella's gift does prompt a journey back to the Sparrows, the reasons seem forced and the action unnecessary. This story would be every bit as moving without the Sparrow women's gifts, fireflies that ignite, and bees that demand politeness. Some fans might be disappointed by the lack of seamless integration of magic and realism in this novel, but others will be thankful the author did not force it upon a story which has its most honest moments between ordinary people. Love and the author's literary expressions of its intricacies figure heavily, verging on sentimentality, but again, Hoffman seems to instinctively know when to abandon this direction just her writing is in danger of becoming maudlin.

Turtle Moon and Practical Magic remain Alice Hoffman's most inventive novels; however, The Probable Future has its own charms. Quiet, loving, and upbeat, this novel is more likely to appeal to women than to men.

Fun read with interesting and magical characters.

I really enjoyed The Probable Future, I thought the plot was good as was the writing. Here's a description:

"The women of the Sparrow family have lived in New England for generations. Each is born in the month of March, and at the age of thirteen, each develops an unusual gift. Elinor can literally smell a lie. Her daughter, Jenny, can see people’s dreams as they’re dreaming them. Granddaughter Stella, newly a teen, has just developed the ability to see how other people will die. Ironically, it is their gifts that have kept Elinor and Jenny apart for the last twenty-five years. But as Stella struggles to cope with her disturbing clairvoyance, the unthinkable happens: One of her premonitions lands her father in jail, wrongly accused of homicide. The ordeal leads Stella to the grandmother she’s never met and to Cake House, the Sparrow ancestral home full of talismans and fraught with history. Now three generations of estranged Sparrow women must come together to turn Stella’s potential to ruin into a potential to redeem."*

*From the back of the book The Probable Future

A bewitching story of gifted women unlucky at love.

A fantastic book -- Just like all of her books!

Wonderful premise but didn't like the characters and this spoiled the book for me.

This book follows the family of the Sparrow woman and their unique gifts. A good read. Covers are torn, but book itself is in great shape.

A story of a family of women with supernatural gifts. Really enjoyable.

This was an absolutely wonderful story about the lives of 3 generations of women in a family and the love, history, memories and tradgey they go through.

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