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Hocus Pocus
A young magician travels across the world seeking fame and fortune all the while hiding a secret, in a novel based on the renowned, real-life Indian stage magicians performing in the United States in the 1800s.
Samuel Thomas, a man of uncertain parentage, is a young magician convinced that he is destined for greatness in a far-off land. Seeking honor and acclaim, he journeys across the globe—from India to London to the fog-shrouded streets of Boston in 1816, the infamous Year Without a Summer. In this season of unrelenting cold, Samuel arrives in a city alive with ambition, contradiction, and tension.
Enter Nathaniel in some ways a world away from Samuel, hailing from the upper echelons of Boston society, but also nursing a problem of his own. Proprietor of the New Boston Museum which is on the brink of bankruptcy, Nathaniel is desperate to find ways to keep it open—and Samuel is the ideal fit for the first live addition to the collection.
While the perfect solution to each other’s problems, the relationship between the two men quickly becomes complicated as Nathaniel grows more and more fascinated, and even obsessed, with the young foreigner. As Samuel becomes subsumed within the museum and dependent on Nathaniel, he must reckon with just how much he’s willing to give up to achieve success. Richly detailed and vividly conjured, Hocus Pocus is a story about art, ambition, and desire, and captures the crackling energy and wonder of a bygone era through the eyes of a young performer.
Samuel Thomas, a man of uncertain parentage, is a young magician convinced that he is destined for greatness in a far-off land. Seeking honor and acclaim, he journeys across the globe—from India to London to the fog-shrouded streets of Boston in 1816, the infamous Year Without a Summer. In this season of unrelenting cold, Samuel arrives in a city alive with ambition, contradiction, and tension.
Enter Nathaniel in some ways a world away from Samuel, hailing from the upper echelons of Boston society, but also nursing a problem of his own. Proprietor of the New Boston Museum which is on the brink of bankruptcy, Nathaniel is desperate to find ways to keep it open—and Samuel is the ideal fit for the first live addition to the collection.
While the perfect solution to each other’s problems, the relationship between the two men quickly becomes complicated as Nathaniel grows more and more fascinated, and even obsessed, with the young foreigner. As Samuel becomes subsumed within the museum and dependent on Nathaniel, he must reckon with just how much he’s willing to give up to achieve success. Richly detailed and vividly conjured, Hocus Pocus is a story about art, ambition, and desire, and captures the crackling energy and wonder of a bygone era through the eyes of a young performer.
336 pages, Kindle Edition
First published August 11, 2026
About the author
Brinda Charry
11 books152 followersBorn in India, Brinda Charry has lived in the USA for over two decades. THE EAST INDIAN, a historical novel set in colonial America, is her American debut and was published by Scribner USA, Scribe UK, and Harper Collins-India in 2023. It won the Society of American Historians Award (formerly the James Fenimore Cooper Prize) for Historical Fiction, was shortlisted for the Barnes and Noble Discover Prize and the Crossword prize; longlisted for the Mark Twain Voice in American Literature Prize and the JCB Prize. Brinda is also a specialist in Shakespeare and other writers of the English Renaissance and has published numerous books and articles in that field. She considers herself a novelist-turned-academic- re-turned novelist. She lives in New Hampshire.
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Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews
August 26, 2026
A young Indian magician comes to Boston seeking fame. He winds up having to perform shows in a museum, where he struggles with the feeling that he is just another exhibit in the cabinet of curiosities.
Maybe I wanted more magic, but I did like the explanations of how some of the tricks were executed. I was never really engaged by this book and almost stopped reading. However, I was listening to the audiobook and the narrator, Vikas Adam, did such a wonderful job with all of the characters that I wanted to keep listening.
I received a free copy of the ebook from the publisher.
Maybe I wanted more magic, but I did like the explanations of how some of the tricks were executed. I was never really engaged by this book and almost stopped reading. However, I was listening to the audiobook and the narrator, Vikas Adam, did such a wonderful job with all of the characters that I wanted to keep listening.
I received a free copy of the ebook from the publisher.
August 17, 2026
I thought I would absolutely love this, but it ended up being…okay.
This is certainly a well-written book and I think the sense of place was mostly well rendered. But I was hoping to get a lot of history on Indian stage magicians, and that’s really a minimal part of the story.
We get a little of this (primarily focused on the Rope Trick, which is certainly an interesting story), but mostly the book is centered on Samuel’s daily life and interactions.
Fine in theory and certainly necessary to an extent, but I wanted to know more about his history and honing of his craft (and by extension Indian magicians in general) and less about his day-to-day interactions and endless discussions of how he doesn’t care about money, which feels as performative here as it does anywhere else, more obvious narrative device than reasonably rendered plot thread.
We also don’t get enough detail (especially in the visual sense) about the museum. Which is really a shame because what detail we do get is excellent.
In all this is a slow moving, semi-intriguing story, but it misses on a lot of potentially interesting historical detail in exchange for banal personal drama.
Charry is a lovely writer and this is by no means an unpleasant read. But it’s missing a lot of what drew me to the book based on the claims of the publisher’s summary.
*I received an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.
This is certainly a well-written book and I think the sense of place was mostly well rendered. But I was hoping to get a lot of history on Indian stage magicians, and that’s really a minimal part of the story.
We get a little of this (primarily focused on the Rope Trick, which is certainly an interesting story), but mostly the book is centered on Samuel’s daily life and interactions.
Fine in theory and certainly necessary to an extent, but I wanted to know more about his history and honing of his craft (and by extension Indian magicians in general) and less about his day-to-day interactions and endless discussions of how he doesn’t care about money, which feels as performative here as it does anywhere else, more obvious narrative device than reasonably rendered plot thread.
We also don’t get enough detail (especially in the visual sense) about the museum. Which is really a shame because what detail we do get is excellent.
In all this is a slow moving, semi-intriguing story, but it misses on a lot of potentially interesting historical detail in exchange for banal personal drama.
Charry is a lovely writer and this is by no means an unpleasant read. But it’s missing a lot of what drew me to the book based on the claims of the publisher’s summary.
*I received an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.
Did Not Finish
August 26, 2026This sounded like it would be my jam (historical fiction! set in Boston! exploring a weird historical niche! gay!) but despite all that I DNF'd it after around 50 pages--pacing was slow, I had WAY too much secondhand embarrassment about the failson museum curator (not necessarily a criticism of the book as I believe this was the intended effect but I just couldn't stand it), and anyway I had other books I was excited to read! So I exercised my free will and returned it to the library!
August 16, 2026
I'm always on board for a story about a vintage magician! Plus a museum curator. Lots of nerd interests represented.
August 12, 2026
Real Rating: 4.75* of five
The Publisher Says: A young magician travels across the world seeking fame and fortune all the while hiding a secret, in a novel based on the renowned, real-life Indian stage magicians performing in the United States in the 1800s.
Samuel Thomas, a man of uncertain parentage, is a young magician convinced that he is destined for greatness in a far-off land. Seeking honor and acclaim, he journeys across the globe—from India to London to the fog-shrouded streets of Boston in 1816, the infamous Year Without a Summer. In this season of unrelenting cold, Samuel arrives in a city alive with ambition, contradiction, and tension.
Enter Nathaniel in some ways a world away from Samuel, hailing from the upper echelons of Boston society, but also nursing a problem of his own. Proprietor of the New Boston Museum which is on the brink of bankruptcy, Nathaniel is desperate to find ways to keep it open—and Samuel is the ideal fit for the first live addition to the collection.
While the perfect solution to each other’s problems, the relationship between the two men quickly becomes complicated as Nathaniel grows more and more fascinated, and even obsessed, with the young foreigner. As Samuel becomes subsumed within the museum and dependent on Nathaniel, he must reckon with just how much he’s willing to give up to achieve success. Richly detailed and vividly conjured, Hocus Pocus is a story about art, ambition, and desire, and captures the crackling energy and wonder of a bygone era through the eyes of a young performer.
I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA NETGALLEY. THANK YOU.
My Review: The modern idea of a museum has its roots in the cabinets of curiosities, or wonder-rooms, of earlier times. It's my opinion their real roots are the human male need to possess...things...and explain them. (No one is allowed to use the sexist slur "mansplain" in my presence. I will perform the most intense demonstration of why you hate this tendency on you unrelentingly.) The young United States becomes their last stronghold, not least because of a man named Barnum. It's the fork in the road for the cabinet of curiosities developing into the vulgar, déclassé sideshow and the institution of High Culture the museum.
That split was already in progress as we meet Walter, a middle-aged proprietor of the New Boston Museum, still on the fence between the two courses of development. Walter is ably assisted by Ezra, who has the idea to perk up attendance thus profits by adding live performance of stage magic to the curiosities on display. Walter bites, as he does not really enjoy sending his unloved wife to see her rich father to get more money to fund his compulsive shopping problem, I mean collecting mania, that is to say procurement of further oddities and wonders for his museum.
Enter Samuel Thomas (né Kumar Samee), half-caste magician from Madras via London, currently performing in a Boston dockside tavern. Samuel has left the indifferent London he ran to as an escape from his grief and misery at losing his lover and stage partner Kabir in a horrible accident. The young United States is welcoming to Samuel because magic shows, stage illusions, and musical performances are very much in vogue. Samuel's dark-by-US-standards skin and his skillful illusions make him the answer to Walter's prayers.
It is a true meeting of needs, so the ways Walter seeks to alter Samuel...from being light-skinned in India and raised as a British boy to being required to darken his skin to suit US audience's race prejudices is quite a blow to Samuel. Obeying his meal ticket is the only viable option so he does it...but it costs him every time he shows his darkened face. This is where the authorial choice to give us the tale in alternating PoVs really pays its dividends. Samuel loves performing his illusions for the burgeoning audiences while feeling slighted and belittled by questions like "where'd you learn to speak such good English" and "but what are you, really" from the local yokels. Audiences have a way of turning into crowds when they get too close....
Walter is a different order of being entirely. He's nouveau riche, like all Americans of necessity must be; he's married into what passes for old money, and Puritanism, in the form of Sarah Talbot. It is expected that a man of his station will have a wife. Walter needs social credibility, and money. Sarah's Puritan father provides, very very grudgingly, because Sarah begs him to, the money to pay off Walter's moneylenders before they do dastardly deeds, possible irreparable harm, to his daughter's chosen husband. It leads to tense confrontations about worshiping idols and near occasions of sin in the family circle.
It's utterly charming how eagerly Walter displays his magpie autodidact's glory in Knowing Stuff. It's clear that this {insert slur from above here} is working on Sarah and Ezra. This causes the love triangles that never fail to enliven a story to multiply Walter's possessive joy in Samuel as performer and man. Sarah's father does not fail to clock the intensity of the feelings in his daughter's marriage and, being deeply Puritan, loudly disapprove of them all. This is all taking place in one of the world's most important climate crises, The Year Without A Summer; it was the first time science was applied to the problem of *why* the weather was doing something unusual enough to cause famines across the globe; and the increasing interconnectedness of the world meant there was actual evidence that the event was fully proven to be global for the first time.
The pleasure of this read is in the deft layering of these events real and invented into multiple meanings. Each character has a slant on all these facts. They interact and interlock to make very different life experiences; we-the-reader's experience contains them all, in varying amounts, to make a deeply satisfying story-reading experience. Boston, brash and burgeoning in this wildly new country, is a fully realized character of its own. An old city by American standards and one founded by religious nuts as a haven from conformity of conscience, it's only at this point that the conformity of conscience the religious nuts quite predictably enforced once they were in power is challenging Boston's elites. New ideas gain relevance and replace dogmas in moments of crisis such as 1816 represent. A wild, intense energy sweeps away old worlds, like Napoleon's recently concluded fall from power and the United States' shocking second victory in fifty years over its old colonizer in a war only barely over.
Abolition of chattel slavery is a more and more important brick in Boston's identity; it's increasingly part of England's social revolution so is much on the minds of all the characters. Samuel's not mistaken for a slave but his status as Other leads him into awareness of how slavery warps people. And his mind being agile and problem-solving, it's not a huge leap to his life as a colonized second-class person.
Text and subtext weave and fray and reweave in unusual, clashing-colored patterns in lumpy awkwardly hand-woven cloth in a society where smooth, carefully blandly uniform machine-loomed stuff is beginning a multicentury normalization. Reading this story was fun, fascinating, invigorating pleasure from start to finish.
The Publisher Says: A young magician travels across the world seeking fame and fortune all the while hiding a secret, in a novel based on the renowned, real-life Indian stage magicians performing in the United States in the 1800s.
Samuel Thomas, a man of uncertain parentage, is a young magician convinced that he is destined for greatness in a far-off land. Seeking honor and acclaim, he journeys across the globe—from India to London to the fog-shrouded streets of Boston in 1816, the infamous Year Without a Summer. In this season of unrelenting cold, Samuel arrives in a city alive with ambition, contradiction, and tension.
Enter Nathaniel in some ways a world away from Samuel, hailing from the upper echelons of Boston society, but also nursing a problem of his own. Proprietor of the New Boston Museum which is on the brink of bankruptcy, Nathaniel is desperate to find ways to keep it open—and Samuel is the ideal fit for the first live addition to the collection.
While the perfect solution to each other’s problems, the relationship between the two men quickly becomes complicated as Nathaniel grows more and more fascinated, and even obsessed, with the young foreigner. As Samuel becomes subsumed within the museum and dependent on Nathaniel, he must reckon with just how much he’s willing to give up to achieve success. Richly detailed and vividly conjured, Hocus Pocus is a story about art, ambition, and desire, and captures the crackling energy and wonder of a bygone era through the eyes of a young performer.
I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA NETGALLEY. THANK YOU.
My Review: The modern idea of a museum has its roots in the cabinets of curiosities, or wonder-rooms, of earlier times. It's my opinion their real roots are the human male need to possess...things...and explain them. (No one is allowed to use the sexist slur "mansplain" in my presence. I will perform the most intense demonstration of why you hate this tendency on you unrelentingly.) The young United States becomes their last stronghold, not least because of a man named Barnum. It's the fork in the road for the cabinet of curiosities developing into the vulgar, déclassé sideshow and the institution of High Culture the museum.
That split was already in progress as we meet Walter, a middle-aged proprietor of the New Boston Museum, still on the fence between the two courses of development. Walter is ably assisted by Ezra, who has the idea to perk up attendance thus profits by adding live performance of stage magic to the curiosities on display. Walter bites, as he does not really enjoy sending his unloved wife to see her rich father to get more money to fund his compulsive shopping problem, I mean collecting mania, that is to say procurement of further oddities and wonders for his museum.
Enter Samuel Thomas (né Kumar Samee), half-caste magician from Madras via London, currently performing in a Boston dockside tavern. Samuel has left the indifferent London he ran to as an escape from his grief and misery at losing his lover and stage partner Kabir in a horrible accident. The young United States is welcoming to Samuel because magic shows, stage illusions, and musical performances are very much in vogue. Samuel's dark-by-US-standards skin and his skillful illusions make him the answer to Walter's prayers.
It is a true meeting of needs, so the ways Walter seeks to alter Samuel...from being light-skinned in India and raised as a British boy to being required to darken his skin to suit US audience's race prejudices is quite a blow to Samuel. Obeying his meal ticket is the only viable option so he does it...but it costs him every time he shows his darkened face. This is where the authorial choice to give us the tale in alternating PoVs really pays its dividends. Samuel loves performing his illusions for the burgeoning audiences while feeling slighted and belittled by questions like "where'd you learn to speak such good English" and "but what are you, really" from the local yokels. Audiences have a way of turning into crowds when they get too close....
Walter is a different order of being entirely. He's nouveau riche, like all Americans of necessity must be; he's married into what passes for old money, and Puritanism, in the form of Sarah Talbot. It is expected that a man of his station will have a wife. Walter needs social credibility, and money. Sarah's Puritan father provides, very very grudgingly, because Sarah begs him to, the money to pay off Walter's moneylenders before they do dastardly deeds, possible irreparable harm, to his daughter's chosen husband. It leads to tense confrontations about worshiping idols and near occasions of sin in the family circle.
It's utterly charming how eagerly Walter displays his magpie autodidact's glory in Knowing Stuff. It's clear that this {insert slur from above here} is working on Sarah and Ezra. This causes the love triangles that never fail to enliven a story to multiply Walter's possessive joy in Samuel as performer and man. Sarah's father does not fail to clock the intensity of the feelings in his daughter's marriage and, being deeply Puritan, loudly disapprove of them all. This is all taking place in one of the world's most important climate crises, The Year Without A Summer; it was the first time science was applied to the problem of *why* the weather was doing something unusual enough to cause famines across the globe; and the increasing interconnectedness of the world meant there was actual evidence that the event was fully proven to be global for the first time.
The pleasure of this read is in the deft layering of these events real and invented into multiple meanings. Each character has a slant on all these facts. They interact and interlock to make very different life experiences; we-the-reader's experience contains them all, in varying amounts, to make a deeply satisfying story-reading experience. Boston, brash and burgeoning in this wildly new country, is a fully realized character of its own. An old city by American standards and one founded by religious nuts as a haven from conformity of conscience, it's only at this point that the conformity of conscience the religious nuts quite predictably enforced once they were in power is challenging Boston's elites. New ideas gain relevance and replace dogmas in moments of crisis such as 1816 represent. A wild, intense energy sweeps away old worlds, like Napoleon's recently concluded fall from power and the United States' shocking second victory in fifty years over its old colonizer in a war only barely over.
Abolition of chattel slavery is a more and more important brick in Boston's identity; it's increasingly part of England's social revolution so is much on the minds of all the characters. Samuel's not mistaken for a slave but his status as Other leads him into awareness of how slavery warps people. And his mind being agile and problem-solving, it's not a huge leap to his life as a colonized second-class person.
Text and subtext weave and fray and reweave in unusual, clashing-colored patterns in lumpy awkwardly hand-woven cloth in a society where smooth, carefully blandly uniform machine-loomed stuff is beginning a multicentury normalization. Reading this story was fun, fascinating, invigorating pleasure from start to finish.
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
Hocus Pocus is based on the renowned, real-life Indian stage magicians performing in the United States in the 1800s.
Two men meat at a time when Samuel Thomas dreams of greatness in a far-off land, and Walter Mepham tries to revitalize the New Boston Museum which is on the brink of bankruptcy. They develop a relationship which is the driving force of this novel. Samuel is a man who strongly knows what he wants and he values his freedom but compromises in some aspect to work for Walter. And that also brings the aspect of how much one can bend to stay true to oneself.
In the backstory, we learn about Kumar Samee who grew up in an orphanage in Madras, India, where the magicians of the city were among the most skilled in the world. At the age of ten, he was taken from his grandparents and put into orphanage under a pretext of a better future. He was of light skin and the British officers of the East India Company saw it more fit for him to be at orphanage where he was named Samuel Thomas.
Walter Mepham is a man of a very peculiar taste, collecting things that are rare and curious. Things that seem almost as idolatry as stated by his father-in-law. George Tablot, among Boston’s wealthiest, doesn’t approve of the museum and his son-in-law. Walter’s love for his curiosities is much greater than for his wife. Sarah recognizes it and it pains her even more when Walter sends her on the missions to ask her father for money for his failing museum.
Ezra Harvey, assistant at museum, suggests bringing lecturers and performances to the museum in order to revitalize it. Walter is very peculiar in his choices but is willing to implement Ezra’s ideas to see what comes of them, but he wants the performer to be of the highest order.
Samuel, who is freshly arrived in the US from London, takes his first steps at a tavern in Boston. At twenty-five, he already considers himself to be an excellent magician and he catches the attention of Walter.
The story is richly detailed, vividly imagined and narrated with outstanding prose. At times the prose takes time to explore a subject among such themes as art, ambition and desire. Interestingly capturing the time when magic shows are all the rage across the world.
Source: ARC was provided by the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
Two men meat at a time when Samuel Thomas dreams of greatness in a far-off land, and Walter Mepham tries to revitalize the New Boston Museum which is on the brink of bankruptcy. They develop a relationship which is the driving force of this novel. Samuel is a man who strongly knows what he wants and he values his freedom but compromises in some aspect to work for Walter. And that also brings the aspect of how much one can bend to stay true to oneself.
In the backstory, we learn about Kumar Samee who grew up in an orphanage in Madras, India, where the magicians of the city were among the most skilled in the world. At the age of ten, he was taken from his grandparents and put into orphanage under a pretext of a better future. He was of light skin and the British officers of the East India Company saw it more fit for him to be at orphanage where he was named Samuel Thomas.
Walter Mepham is a man of a very peculiar taste, collecting things that are rare and curious. Things that seem almost as idolatry as stated by his father-in-law. George Tablot, among Boston’s wealthiest, doesn’t approve of the museum and his son-in-law. Walter’s love for his curiosities is much greater than for his wife. Sarah recognizes it and it pains her even more when Walter sends her on the missions to ask her father for money for his failing museum.
Ezra Harvey, assistant at museum, suggests bringing lecturers and performances to the museum in order to revitalize it. Walter is very peculiar in his choices but is willing to implement Ezra’s ideas to see what comes of them, but he wants the performer to be of the highest order.
Samuel, who is freshly arrived in the US from London, takes his first steps at a tavern in Boston. At twenty-five, he already considers himself to be an excellent magician and he catches the attention of Walter.
The story is richly detailed, vividly imagined and narrated with outstanding prose. At times the prose takes time to explore a subject among such themes as art, ambition and desire. Interestingly capturing the time when magic shows are all the rage across the world.
Source: ARC was provided by the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
August 10, 2026
The Greatest Showman meets Water for Elephants.
I have a healthy fascination when it comes to books about the stage, but what keeps me invested is the experience of these showmen, in this case a magician and a museum curator. Told in dual POV, we always have a window into these characters' thoughts and emotions that keep the story moving.
In Brinda Charry's book, we meet two men, one a struggling magician, Samuel, who sets out for the Americas, Boston to be exact, to make a name. That dream doesn't come easy as he'd thought, which was relatable whether you're in showbusiness or not. His story was most compelling as he fought to stay true to himself while playing a part that carried dire consequences. A tortured soul with a secret past, he kept me intrigued with the mystery.
On the other end of the story is Walter, a collector of things for his Boston museum. His acquisitions weren't cheap, causing him to be knee-deep in debt. His pursuit for the next shiny thing had caused a rift between him and his father-in-law. The drama and the out-of-control spending were well translated on the page. His sense of propriety unravels after signing the magician, giving way to something closer to obsession.
There is also the theme of mixed-race identity woven into the book. Samuel, being of Anglo-Indian heritage, had been constantly asked what he was. I loved how the character never answered this despite himself asking the same question given his background. He meets a friend, Liberty, a formerly enslaved man. Liberty becomes a sobering reminder to Samuel of the personal freedom he is losing in exchange for fame.
I paired this with the audiobook, and I can't believe this was narrated by just one person, Vikas Adam, when it sounded like two different people. One cannot mistake who is speaking. Samuel's Anglo-Indian accent and Walter's Bostonian accent added authenticity to the story. Plus, the secondary characters all sounded different. On top of the nuanced characterizations, Adam's performance captured Samuel's deep exhaustion and Walter's spiraling. It truly was a one-man show worth listening to.
Rich with historical detail, this book explores obsession and the cost of fame.
Thank you to Scribner Books and Simon & Schuster Audio for my Advance Reader’s Copy for review. All opinions are my own.
I have a healthy fascination when it comes to books about the stage, but what keeps me invested is the experience of these showmen, in this case a magician and a museum curator. Told in dual POV, we always have a window into these characters' thoughts and emotions that keep the story moving.
In Brinda Charry's book, we meet two men, one a struggling magician, Samuel, who sets out for the Americas, Boston to be exact, to make a name. That dream doesn't come easy as he'd thought, which was relatable whether you're in showbusiness or not. His story was most compelling as he fought to stay true to himself while playing a part that carried dire consequences. A tortured soul with a secret past, he kept me intrigued with the mystery.
On the other end of the story is Walter, a collector of things for his Boston museum. His acquisitions weren't cheap, causing him to be knee-deep in debt. His pursuit for the next shiny thing had caused a rift between him and his father-in-law. The drama and the out-of-control spending were well translated on the page. His sense of propriety unravels after signing the magician, giving way to something closer to obsession.
There is also the theme of mixed-race identity woven into the book. Samuel, being of Anglo-Indian heritage, had been constantly asked what he was. I loved how the character never answered this despite himself asking the same question given his background. He meets a friend, Liberty, a formerly enslaved man. Liberty becomes a sobering reminder to Samuel of the personal freedom he is losing in exchange for fame.
I paired this with the audiobook, and I can't believe this was narrated by just one person, Vikas Adam, when it sounded like two different people. One cannot mistake who is speaking. Samuel's Anglo-Indian accent and Walter's Bostonian accent added authenticity to the story. Plus, the secondary characters all sounded different. On top of the nuanced characterizations, Adam's performance captured Samuel's deep exhaustion and Walter's spiraling. It truly was a one-man show worth listening to.
Rich with historical detail, this book explores obsession and the cost of fame.
Thank you to Scribner Books and Simon & Schuster Audio for my Advance Reader’s Copy for review. All opinions are my own.
Review of advance copy received from Publisher
✨ If you're searching for a historical fiction book that blends stage magic, unforgettable characters, and a richly immersive setting, Hocus Pocus is pure literary magic.
From India to London and finally to the frozen streets of Boston during the infamous Year Without a Summer, I was captivated by Samuel Thomas's journey. He's determined to make a name for himself as a magician, but his pursuit of fame comes with sacrifices that become more complicated the further he climbs. Watching him navigate a world fascinated by his talent while simultaneously othering him made for a compelling and emotionally layered reading experience.
One of my favorite aspects of this immersive historical fiction novel was how vividly Brinda Charry recreated the early 1800s. The historical details never felt overwhelming; they enriched every page, from the bustling museum exhibitions to the cultural tensions simmering beneath Boston society. The atmosphere was beautifully crafted, making me feel as though I was walking beside Samuel through foggy streets and candlelit performance halls.
I also appreciated the evolving relationship between Samuel and Nathaniel. Their dynamic is filled with admiration, ambition, dependence, and obsession, raising fascinating questions about power, art, and the cost of chasing recognition. Rather than offering easy answers, this literary historical fiction novel invites readers to reflect on who gets to control a story and what someone is willing to sacrifice in pursuit of their dreams.
If you love historical fiction books, books about magicians, literary fiction, historical novels set in the 1800s, or character-driven stories that explore ambition, identity, and belonging, Hocus Pocus deserves a place on your TBR. It's a beautifully written novel that lingers long after the final page and is perfect for readers who enjoy immersive historical settings with thought-provoking themes.
🪄 Thank you to Scribner Books and Brinda Charry for sharing Hocus Pocus with me!
From India to London and finally to the frozen streets of Boston during the infamous Year Without a Summer, I was captivated by Samuel Thomas's journey. He's determined to make a name for himself as a magician, but his pursuit of fame comes with sacrifices that become more complicated the further he climbs. Watching him navigate a world fascinated by his talent while simultaneously othering him made for a compelling and emotionally layered reading experience.
One of my favorite aspects of this immersive historical fiction novel was how vividly Brinda Charry recreated the early 1800s. The historical details never felt overwhelming; they enriched every page, from the bustling museum exhibitions to the cultural tensions simmering beneath Boston society. The atmosphere was beautifully crafted, making me feel as though I was walking beside Samuel through foggy streets and candlelit performance halls.
I also appreciated the evolving relationship between Samuel and Nathaniel. Their dynamic is filled with admiration, ambition, dependence, and obsession, raising fascinating questions about power, art, and the cost of chasing recognition. Rather than offering easy answers, this literary historical fiction novel invites readers to reflect on who gets to control a story and what someone is willing to sacrifice in pursuit of their dreams.
If you love historical fiction books, books about magicians, literary fiction, historical novels set in the 1800s, or character-driven stories that explore ambition, identity, and belonging, Hocus Pocus deserves a place on your TBR. It's a beautifully written novel that lingers long after the final page and is perfect for readers who enjoy immersive historical settings with thought-provoking themes.
🪄 Thank you to Scribner Books and Brinda Charry for sharing Hocus Pocus with me!
August 21, 2026
Hocus Pocus is a richly imagined historical novel that brings together magic, ambition, art, desire, and cultural displacement against the fascinating backdrop of the early nineteenth century. Samuel Thomas, a young magician of uncertain parentage, leaves India in pursuit of fame and travels through London before arriving in Boston during the extraordinary cold of 1816, the infamous “Year Without a Summer.”
The novel becomes especially compelling through Samuel's relationship with Nathaniel, a wealthy Bostonian struggling to keep his museum alive. What begins as a mutually beneficial arrangement gradually develops into something far more complicated as fascination, dependence, ambition, and desire begin to reshape both men's lives. Samuel's position as a performer and outsider also creates an intriguing exploration of power and the personal cost of pursuing recognition.
Readers who enjoy historical fiction, literary fiction, stories of artists and performers, nineteenth-century settings, queer historical narratives, and novels exploring ambition and cultural identity should find Hocus Pocus particularly appealing. Its combination of real historical inspiration and an intimate fictional story creates an opportunity to engage readers interested in forgotten histories, spectacle, museums, and the complicated relationships that emerge when art and ambition intersect.
The novel becomes especially compelling through Samuel's relationship with Nathaniel, a wealthy Bostonian struggling to keep his museum alive. What begins as a mutually beneficial arrangement gradually develops into something far more complicated as fascination, dependence, ambition, and desire begin to reshape both men's lives. Samuel's position as a performer and outsider also creates an intriguing exploration of power and the personal cost of pursuing recognition.
Readers who enjoy historical fiction, literary fiction, stories of artists and performers, nineteenth-century settings, queer historical narratives, and novels exploring ambition and cultural identity should find Hocus Pocus particularly appealing. Its combination of real historical inspiration and an intimate fictional story creates an opportunity to engage readers interested in forgotten histories, spectacle, museums, and the complicated relationships that emerge when art and ambition intersect.
August 13, 2026
Brinda Charry’s Hocus Pocus is a historical novel that blends adventure, mystery, magic, and the complex realities of life in the early modern world. The story follows characters whose lives become entangled with questions of identity, power, belief, and survival. Against a richly imagined historical setting, Charry explores how people make sense of a world where superstition, religion, science, and magic can exist side by side. The novel is particularly interested in the ways people are shaped by the societies they live in and how easily truth can become mixed with illusion.
As the story unfolds, the characters encounter deception, uncertainty, and situations that challenge what they believe to be real. The title itself reflects the book’s fascination with tricks, appearances, and the gap between what people see and what is actually happening. Charry combines historical detail with an engaging narrative, giving the story both an adventurous quality and a deeper emotional dimension. Beneath its elements of mystery and wonder, Hocus Pocus examines human ambition, fear, curiosity, and the desire to understand forces beyond ordinary experience. It ultimately presents a world where magic may be an illusion, but the consequences of belief are very real.
As the story unfolds, the characters encounter deception, uncertainty, and situations that challenge what they believe to be real. The title itself reflects the book’s fascination with tricks, appearances, and the gap between what people see and what is actually happening. Charry combines historical detail with an engaging narrative, giving the story both an adventurous quality and a deeper emotional dimension. Beneath its elements of mystery and wonder, Hocus Pocus examines human ambition, fear, curiosity, and the desire to understand forces beyond ordinary experience. It ultimately presents a world where magic may be an illusion, but the consequences of belief are very real.
August 31, 2026
For a book whose ingredients had high dramatic potential--stage magicians and 19th-century homosexual yearning, two of my favorite things--this novel was strangely inert. The setting was fully realized, generating most of the pleasure of this book for me, but the characters were two-dimensional. For the first two-thirds of the story, they merely went through the same conflicts over and over, without any new and surprising facets of their personalities being revealed by the action. There was too much telling of what they were thinking and what it meant, rather than showing it through scenes. The imagery was beautiful but I always felt I was viewing the characters secondhand instead of connecting with them emotionally. Matters escalated to some sort of climax in the last 100 pages but even then, the big actions seemed random, not inevitably entailed by tension that had built up before. How can you have an escaped tiger who does nothing to advance the plot? I did love learning about early 19th-century America, poised between the hardships of the Revolutionary War period and the boom times ahead in the Gilded Age. Charry is a good prose stylist and certainly did her research.
Read
August 19, 2026Unfortunately, this one was too slow moving to hold my attention at this time. I do appreciate that the writing is gorgeous, but I wish we learned more about the history of the magicians and how the intrigue has grown through this time. I do love the sense of place; I can feel the winter-like summer and even walking through the strange museum.
Audiobook note: I really loved the narration, I enjoy how soothing this narrator's voice is.
Audiobook note: I really loved the narration, I enjoy how soothing this narrator's voice is.
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
A DELIGHTFUL historical fiction that mixes magic with the Era of Good Feelings. Brilliantly developed characters which puts you in the heart of Boston in 1816 (“The Year Without a Summer”). If you love magic this novel should be high on your list of reads this Fall. An immersive experience.
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
A ambitious young man of unknown birth whose adopted uncle taught him Indian stage magic flees England for the United States to seek fame.
Review of advance copy received from Edelweiss+
Nice book
Did Not Finish
August 22, 2026DNF 2%
There's nothing wrong with it but the the writing leans towards an autobiography style that isn't to my personal taste.
There's nothing wrong with it but the the writing leans towards an autobiography style that isn't to my personal taste.
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