Alice Hoffman is a magical author, who understands serendipity and the art of magical living and storytelling. I always find myself immersed in her stories and find to extract a little of her fairy dust to my ordinary everyday life. Reading “The Third Angel” is no different.
“The Third Angel” consists of three interconnected stories with commonalities in characters, themes, and a run down Knightsbridge hotel called the Lion Park Hotel. I will not spoil the plot for you, but instead only relate that the stories are set in 1999, 1966, and 1952 respectively, and are beautiful, atmospheric time pieces as well.
Stories and storytelling is an integral part of “The Third Angel” and Alice Hoffman’s novels in general. In “The Third Angel” there is the story of a heron with a heron wife and a human wife. (And this is just one of the many, many love triangles in the novel.) One character thinks of the story; her daughter publishes the story. There is the story of the third angel, which a village doctor tells his daughter. I love this facet.
I love the balance between ordinary reality and the magical element. There is a very audible ghost in “The Third Angel”, but it seems very believable as does the garden that after a death blooms with everything poisonous.
Recommendations of “The Third Angel” are a little difficult, because I find the novel so charming and do want to share the sprinkle of fairy dust with everyone. However, I would recommend “The Third Angel” to readers who want a beautiful written and plotted story with a teaspoon of casual magic.
