book recommendations · books like practical magic · books similar to practical magic · family curse books · Windhaven Witches · witch books for adults ·Oct 27, 2026

Books Like Practical Magic: 7 Witchy Family Stories

Some books stay with you because of the magic, and some because of the family. Practical Magic does both. Alice Hoffman's novel follows the Owens family, whose women have carried a curse on their love lives for more than three centuries, and it has been a favorite for readers who want witches, sisters, and a love story that has to be earned.

If you've finished it and want more, here are seven books with that same pull. I write witches myself, so one of my series is on this list (clearly labeled), and I checked every premise against a published description before adding it.

What makes a book feel like Practical Magic

A family at the center, often sisters or generations of women.
A curse, a legacy, or a secret that has been handed down.
An old house, a small town, or a place that feels like a character.
Magic that is woven into everyday life.
Love that has to push past something before it can last.

7 books similar to Practical Magic

1. Garden Spells by Sarah Addison Allen

The Waverleys are a family of outsiders in Bascom, North Carolina, with a garden that holds an apple tree with prophetic fruit and flowers with magical properties. Claire, a caterer who cooks with those plants, keeps her emotions guarded until her estranged sister Sydney comes home with a young daughter. As the sisters face their painful past and their shared inheritance, a neighbor's attention adds a touch of romance.

2. The Windhaven Witches by Carissa Andrews (mine)

Practical Magic fans tend to care about the family more than the spells, so here's where Windhaven fits. Autumn Blackwood inherits a legacy nobody ever explained to her: a manor full of ghosts, a place at a school she never applied for, and a curse that has followed her bloodline for generations. Untangling it means asking the questions the older generation never wanted asked. Along the way she crosses paths with a silver-eyed stranger among the gravestones, and the friends she makes become the family she needed.

The series runs four books and sits in YA+ paranormal fantasy romance, so expect some strong language and mature moments. The mood is shadowy rather than cozy. Start with Secret Legacy (Book 1), or pick up the complete series in the Windhaven Witches Omnibus.

3. The Rules of Magic by Alice Hoffman

This is a prequel to Practical Magic by the same author. It follows the Owens siblings, Franny, Jet, and Vincent, who have unusual gifts and are raised under strict rules by their mother in New York City in the early 1960s. A summer visit to an aunt in a Massachusetts town teaches them about the family curse tied to love, which traces back to Maria Owens, who was accused of witchcraft in the 1600s. It shows how two of the siblings become the aunts from the earlier book. The Practical Magic series has four books in all, with The Book of Magic as the final installment.

4. The Once and Future Witches by Alix E. Harrow

In 1893 New Salem, an alternate America where magic has nearly vanished since the burnings, the three Eastwood sisters, James Juniper, Agnes Amaranth, and Beatrice Belladonna, reunite after years apart. As the suffrage movement grows, they glimpse a hidden magical tower and set out to restore power to women through both the vote and witchcraft. They have to resist a campaign of fear led by Gideon Hall and repair their own fractured bond to survive.

5. Witches of East End by Melissa de la Cruz

Freya, Ingrid, and their mother Joanna Beauchamp are witches in a Long Island town who traded most of their magic for a long life. When that bargain starts to slip, their powers surface and ripple through the community. Freya, meanwhile, is caught between two brothers.

6. The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane by Katherine Howe

Connie Goodwin, a college student, moves into her late grandmother's decaying house in Massachusetts and finds a small key with a cryptic note bearing the name Deliverance Dane. Her search for the author of a mysterious book pulls her into the history of the Salem witch trials, with a romantic subplot from a handsome steeplejack.

7. A Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness

Diana Bishop comes from a family of witches and has spent years avoiding her own power. Then a manuscript she opens at Oxford's Bodleian Library draws the attention of Matthew Clairmont, a vampire who has been searching for it for more than a century and a half. Their uneasy alliance, and the forbidden romance that follows, kicks off the All Souls trilogy.

How to choose your next read

Want sisters, a magical garden, and a small Southern town? Start with Garden Spells.
Want a family curse and a manor full of ghosts? Try The Windhaven Witches (mine).
Want more of the Owens family? Read The Rules of Magic.
Want sisters, suffrage, and witchcraft in an alternate 1893? Pick up The Once and Future Witches.
Want a family of long-lived witches on Long Island? Go with Witches of East End.
Want a hunt through family secrets and Salem history? Choose The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane.
Want a scholar, a vampire, and a forbidden romance? Look at A Discovery of Witches.