It's been too long since I shared my latest read, and I cannot wait to tell you more about it. Allow me to introduce you to the novel, and also the beginning of a new series, which has stolen my heart in every way imaginable: The Pomegranate Gate by A. E. Kaplan. Rich, imaginative, lush, exquisite—I could gush about this book, but let me get to the substance of how it is all those things and more. The Pomegranate Gate is a Jewish historical epic fantasy set in an alternative version of ...
Musings
Good Intentions
This past [Gregorian] year has been one of the more challenging I’ve experienced, and I say that even after my husband’s and sister’s unexpected health issues which transpired and dominated most of 2020 and 2021 for us, respectively. Needless to say, I’ll be thrilled to say goodbye to 2023 this coming December 31. I’m looking forward to 2024 and all it has to offer, especially since 5784 has started off to be a much needed improvement. One of those improvements has come—shockingly—in the ...
“Make Some Light”
I once attended a class on blogging, and the instructor shared her personal philosophy she held before embarking on creating her own blog—she would only do that which cost her nothing. Granted, for her blogging was merely a hobby. That makes sense. The instructor, now author, never intended her blog to develop into a platform which would launch a successful career. However, her story is a lot like those who began blogging in the early years of the Internet and social media: viral posts lead ...
Dare to Linger
I miss the kittens. Beyond that I’m thinking and feeling so many different things right now it’s ridiculous. I woke up today [Tuesday] and during my morning commute when I take time to talk with Hashem and prepare for my day, I discovered how enraged I am. What has me particularly perturbed at the moment is the acceptability of "ghosting" in today's culture. It is so degrading to put yourself out there, to be vulnerable, with someone only to receive silence as a response. I know ...
The Kitten Invasion
It feels weird to have both the time to sit down and write again. Not when the world is in upheaval. Not when there are still babies in captivity, stripped away from their mommies. Finding the courage to write, to put thought to paper, has been difficult this past month. (Yes, that's how long it has been since H@mas stole away so many lives with their heinous cruelty.) How can I write when the world is not whole? When so many lives, families, are broken? When the nations rage against ...
Three Weeks
It’s been three weeks. Three weeks since they screamed, Begging to be saved. Three weeks since they bled, Entire families slain. I want to write. I want to find the light. Chanukkah is coming, Not Tisha B’av. I can’t find the words, the momentum. I feel snuffed like chaff Thrown to the wind, Blown about in a storm. All that comes to me are snippets. Moments. A line here, a thought there. Broken, like our home. Pieces missing Like the souls ...
Stand with Israel, Stand with Jews
Since Saturday morning, I've succumbed to a barrage of emotions. What should have been a day of joy and celebration for the holidays suddenly turned to one of sorrow and despair. By now, most of you should have heard of the horrific war which has broken out in Israel. If you haven't, you live under a bigger rock than me. This war is the result of an organized terror attack by the terrorist organization, H@mas, in southern Israel. Women have been raped and murdered, hostages taken, small ...
WOMS: The Wolf and the Woodsman
This week’s book that’s on my shelf is Ava Reid’s The Wolf and the Woodsman, a novel suggested to me by a fellow writer friend when I asked for good examples of fantasy romance, or as it is quickly becoming, romantasy. It’s a good thing, then, I’m entitled to my own opinion, one which I’ll share now, because I’m not certain I would classify this as that. Then again, perhaps my tastes are too regulated and not varied; maybe I haven’t sampled enough of the different flavours of romantasy to ...
Joy Comes in the Morning
A new year has come and gone, and with it I hope the sorrows of the past. This time of year always brings with it a flood of emotions, but none are more potent than my joy mingled with grief. Last year was probably one of the most painful of my life. Even now, as I write, I’m still grieving; hoping, praying it will be fully released by the end of Yom Kippur next Monday evening, so that I may enter this new year fully revived and content. And yet, though there has been great pain, there has ...
WOMS: Nocturne
Remember how a few weeks back, my husband took me to Barnes & Noble at my behest to get out of the cramped hospital room I'd been trapped in for about a week? And remember how I fondly caressed the cover of Emily Wilde's Encyclopaedia of Faeries? There was another book. That book was none other than Alyssa Wees's Nocturne. It had one of those employee recommendation labels beneath it, describing it as The Phantom of the Opera meets "The Beauty and the Beast." Of course I wanted ...
