The Third Angel

By Alice Hoffman

Painful, bewitching classic of love’s dimensions.

Three beautifully interlaced stories. Painful dissection of the choices we make in love—lover to lover, sister to sister, parent and child, wife and husband—and how their consequences haunt us, are explored in this intense Alice Hoffman classic.

Each story is told in its entirety, beginning with Maddy in the present, then Frieda in the 1960’s and finally 12-year-old Lucy in the 1950’s. Loosely connected, each is a stand-alone drama. So much so, that the book could also be read back to front for an entirely different interpretation of events.

Hoffman is a master at using magical realism to inspire a deep empathy for these beautiful, flawed characters.

Listen to this: “but inside she was broken, made of bones and black ribbons, blood and darkness.” So good!