In this multi-generational saga spanning pre- and post-World War II Transylvania, Paris, England and Brooklyn's Williamsburg, Anouk Markovits explores the double-edged potential of religious conviction in the lives of two women who choose paths that are diametrically opposed.
When Mila Heller's parents are shot by Nazi soldiers, she is adopted by the rabbi of their Transylvanian village and becomes a sister to Atara Stern. As the daughters of a revered leader, the girls enjoy a status akin to princesses, yet Atara chafes at the restrictions of her ultra-Orthodox Satmar Hasidic upbringing, while Mila looks forward to marriage and children in a home built on the foundations of that tradition. But, in a twist of irony, it is that same tradition that will threaten to destroy Mila's dreams of happiness.
Those outside a religion tend to see it as a collection of petty rules. Markovits--who was raised in the Satmar community--demonstrates that to those within, these laws are imbued with incredible power to save and destroy. Compounding this power is the story's connection to the Holocaust, which gives the characters even more cause to see the world as a Manichean play of righteousness and evil, dark and light.
Markovits best captures this theme in her tender depiction of Mila's marriage to Josef. Living within the codified parameters of "forbidden" and "permitted," the alternating flows of blood and ritual immersion, Mila and Josef share a love that is real and deep. By avoiding the easy cliché of the cold arranged marriage, Markovits intensifies the emotional heft of the story--and forces the reader to be moved by the characters' fates. --Ilana Teitelbaum, book reviewer at the Huffington Post