I've been meaning to pre-order a copy of Alice Hoffman's upcoming book for a while now, but since I've still got *The Red Garden* and *Here On Earth* to finish first AND I want to re-read the Practical Magic book series in full one more time before the movie comes out in September I figured I'd hold off a little. Catch up first. But since it's the middle of June and I *THOUGHT* WOC was coming out in August (I could have sworn that was the announced release date originally), I was like eh maybe I'd better just get a order in. 

To my surprise however the release date is now listed as September 8, which notably is the same week Practical Magic 2 comes out in theaters. And remembering that PM 2 was originally set for later in September and recently got pushed forward to the 11th, I'm wondering, was WOC pushed back on purpose so its release would be almost directly on top of PM 2?

If so, it's kind of stupid that they literally changed the title of Book of Magic to Practical Magic 2 when they already had the promotional material of Witches of Cambridge coming out with a huge "Author of Practical Magic" label on it. 

I mean it's good marketing, even *great* marketing, don't get me wrong, but I'm starting to feel like the marketers also have no faith in Alice's long time fans? Like they think if WOC comes out a month before PM 2 we'll be burned out and forget about her before the movie comes out? Do they really think our attention span is that bad? Or that we're so dumb we can't work out what book PM 2 is based on with the title changed? Book of Magic is just too complicated for us? 🤔 

Thoughts?

Was the release date of Witches of Cambridge change to be closer to Practical Magic 2?