I've been avoiding this for a while now, thinking I wouldn't need to take such measures. However, I've come to accept that the only way forward is to be honest with myself. My creative spirit is broken; distraught with grief. I need to take more time to sit with my pain, to find my creativity again, to let my soul ache and languish the loss of the beautiful life of my uncle. I think I've been trying so hard to press forward, I never stopped to ask myself if I should. My grief has at ...
Musings
WOMS: Where the Library Hides
The book opens with a dedication to the readers who have agonized over the abrupt ending of What the River Knows, and I think more authors should respect a reader's plight because darn right this is dedicated to me! As it should be! About time someone noticed! You can’t just leave me hanging like that with a final twist that stabs you in the gut! That’s right—this week, we’re talking all about the epic conclusion to the historical fantasy mystery, Where the Library Hides. Careful, though; ...
WOMS: The Republic of Salt
It's been almost a year since we explored the Mirror Realm, and—at last—it's time to return with Ariel Kaplan's latest installment in her Jewish-inspired epic fantasy series, The Republic of Salt. But reader beware! Spoilers are ahead! Events start immediately after the first book's conclusion without missing any beats. Asmel and Toba Bet are on the run on the mortal side of the gate as Naftaly, Elana, a severely wounded Barsilay, and the old woman are trapped on the Mazik side in the ...
WOMS: Wake Me Most Wickedly
Felicia Grossman has done it again with another fairy tale retelling with her Once Upon the East End series, but this time the twist isn't only the swapped gender roles in her version of Snow White. This week, we're talking all about Wake Me Most Wickedly, and what makes a true villain. Solomon Weiss may have lost the opportunity to marry Isabelle Lira to his more than deserving friend, Aaron Ellenberg, but he managed to walk away as her new business partner. Now he can make true on his ...
WOMS: The Spellshop
My uncle died earlier this month. I know that’s an odd way to begin a book review, but his death is intrinsically linked to this book I want to share. This will be a bit unorthodox. Thanksgiving is tomorrow, and I'm flooded with memories in my mourning. I've sat down trying to write this review as strictly a review for the past month, but each time I can't help but circle back to my uncle and his death. I seem incapable of separating the two. You see, after I first learned he was dying ...
WOMS: Marry Me by Midnight
This historical romance has been on my TBR list for a while; since the moment I saw a hunky kippah-wearing man on the front cover. I don't know about you, but most of the time, I forget what's even on my TBR. I'm so glad I remembered this gem and actually picked it up to read because it was so much more than I expected. This week, it's Felicia Grossman's Marry Me by Midnight, a Jewish gender-swapped retelling of Cinderella. Similar to Jean Meltzer's Jewish pride and joy in her romcoms, ...
WOMS: Magical Meet Cute
We're back this week with another Jean Meltzer special, this time in the form of a hunky golem (maybe). It's Magical Meet Cute! After an antisemitic attack, Faye---a former lawyer turned ceramicist living in Upstate New York---gets drunk and makes her perfect man out of clay inspired by the golem stories of old. But when a stranger walks in front of her bicycle the next day, leading to a horrible crash and amnesia for the poor guy, she wonders just how much magic she conjured the night ...
WOMS: Kissing Kosher
We're continuing this week with more Jewish fiction, this time with Jean Meltzer's Kissing Kosher, a delectable tale as sweet and rich as a loaf of babka. In this romantic comedy, with similar vibes to Romeo and Juliet, there are two feuding families whose patriarchs started a bakery half a century ago, but what neither family agrees on is who wronged who. Caught in the middle is Avital Cohen, granddaughter to Chayim Cohen, founder and owner of Best Babka in Brooklyn, an artisan kosher ...
WOMS: The Familiar
I hadn’t planned on reading The Familiar because the cover creeped me out a bit and I wasn’t sure if it would be too dark for me. How wrong I was. I’m so glad my friend persuaded me to give this a read because it was a heartbreaking, beautiful love story, one only Leigh Bardugo could have written. Though I haven’t read her new Ninth House series, I have read all but one of Bardugo’s Grishaverse books. To me, Bardugo is a superior writer because she has a way of weaving tragedy so humane ...
From Mourning to Joy
This past year is coming to an end, at least on the Jewish calendar, and that means I have been reminiscent, as one does when they assess their lives before the chagim, or holidays. For us, for Israel, this past year has been tinged, if not saturated, with sorrow and grief. Since October 7, our lives have never been the same. There have been days where my grief was near inconsolable, where I wandered through the day like a phantom, feeling more a shadow of myself than anything real or ...
