Here I am again, ready to talk to you about one of my favourite historical fiction authors: Kristin Hannah.
My first encounter with her writing was in 2017, with The Nightingale – what a prose, what a voice, what a devastatingly beautiful story.
Then came The Great Alone in 2018: raw, survival-driven, and full of strong women grappling with the brutality of nature and life.

So when Suma de Letras, a Spanish publisher I have the honour of collaborating with, announced the release of the author’s newly translated title, it didn’t take me long to request a review copy, which they kindly provided.

A Girl From the Wild & a Story Rooted in Mystery.

A tiny girl running out of the woods with a wolf by her side;
two sisters with an old grudge and unresolved family wounds.

There is always a touch of magical realism in Kristin Hannah’s writing — something extraordinary that defies logic until, somehow, in the final pages, everything falls into place.

I will not lie: my expectations were high. I wanted to be broken again. I wanted the emotional devastation Hannah is known for.
But this book felt different – and not always in the way I wanted it to feel.

“It was the Magic Hour, the moment in time when every leaf and blade of grass seemed to separate, when sunlight, burnished by the rain and softened by the coming night, gave the world an impossibly beautiful glow.”

Where the Magic Usually Happens.

One of the reasons I love Hannah’s writing is her ability to transport the reader. The attention to historical detail, the emotional landscape, the sense of being pulled into real people’s lives – that is her magic.

Yet Magic Hour felt… incomplete in this regard. The setting lacked the richness and atmospheric depth that her historical works so beautifully carry.

Julia Cates is a renowned child psychologist facing the downfall of her career after being accused of failing to foresee a tragic event involving one of her teenage patients. Her introduction is strong, raw, and emotionally complex.

Ellie, the older sister and the sheriff of their hometown, is twice divorced and still dreaming of a fairy-tale rescue. She must handle the greatest challenge of her career: the mysterious appearance of a feral child.
For this, she needs Julia – which means confronting old wounds and the silence left behind after their parents’ deaths.

Up to this point, the story holds well. But then comes the issue that overshadowed much of my experience.

The Portrayal of Autism.

Once Julia arrives in Rain Valley and begins observing the girl, the depiction of autism becomes noticeably outdated and reductive.

Reading about the autism spectrum as if it were a single, rigid experience, especially through the eyes of a psychologist, felt frustrating and inaccurate.
The girl has emerged from the wild into an unfamiliar and frightening environment. Any child, regardless of neurotype, would react with fear, silence, and withdrawal.

Yet the narrative repeatedly leans on clichés and oversimplified assumptions until the idea of autism suddenly vanishes from Julia’s mind entirely.

This portrayal felt antiquated and, frankly, disappointing…

Unresolved Plot Threads & Weak Motivations.

Another unresolved point is Julia’s resentment toward her father.
For someone as intelligent and trained in psychology as Julia, her lifelong grudge felt shallow, underdeveloped, and unconvincing.

It only reinforced my belief that many people drawn to psychology do so in search of healing, projecting their own wounds on others rather than confronting their own shadows.
We may not choose what hurt us as children, but as adults, we do choose what defines us. And Julia had enough time to sit down with herself and her own feelings to work it through.

Ellie: A Familiar Archetype.

Ellie embodies the cliché of the small-town favourite daughter:
popular, effortlessly adored, not as academically gifted as her sister, yet always receiving more from life.

She reminded me slightly of Tully Hart from Firefly Lane: self-centred, impulsive, and lacking emotional awareness, even with the people she loves most.

“Girls like you can’t understand,” Julia said, and it was true. Ellie had been popular. She didn’t know that some hurts were like a once-broken bone. In the right weather, they could ache for a lifetime.“

Sisterhood Rediscovered.

Despite their flaws, the emotional evolution of the Cates sisters is one of the strengths of the novel.
Thanks to the girl (eventually named Alice), the sisters soften, reconnect, and unearth the shared memories buried in the old walls of their childhood home.

One begins to rediscover her calling;
the other becomes more grounded in what truly matters.
Both find love – in different shapes, and most importantly, within themselves.

When it comes to the romantic arcs, they are predictable, yet still sweet in their unfolding.
What matters here is vulnerability. The deliberate choice to open one’s heart despite the fear of being hurt.
And that is, after all, one of the greatest acts of love.

“Love rips the shit out of you and puts you back together like a broken toy, with all kinds of cracks and edges. It’s not about the falling in love. It’s about the landing, the staying where you said you’d be and working to keep the love strong.”

Alice: The Girl From the Wild.

Alice’s development is slow, gentle, and beautifully handled.
We glimpse fragments of her inner world, her growing trust in the sisters, and her gradual step into humanity.

Her presence also opens the door to the fascinating and heartbreaking subject of feral children, individuals raised in isolation from society, shaped more by nature than by human contact.
The book references several real cases for readers who want to explore the topic further, even if it means to embrace the cruelty of most of those cases when, once fully exploited, those children were abandoned for their own luck again.

The Climax: Emotional, Yet Rushed.

As for the ending, Hannah’s novels often destroy you in the final act, that is her signature.
Here, the climax is emotional, but it feels rushed, especially considering the slower, sometimes stagnant middle part of the book.
Still, seen through the eyes of a six-year-old who has endured far too much, it remains heavy and difficult to swallow.

Overall, I enjoyed Magic Hour for what it was: an imperfect yet heartfelt story about healing, sisterhood, second chances, and the many forms love can take.

Love remains the answer behind every transformation, if we are brave enough to face it and call it by its name.
And that is where the true magic lies.

With love,

A.