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 ...
Judaism
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: 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 ...
