Valley of Chaya


Book Description

Deceit, corruption and forced prostitution are words that never crossed Charlotte's mind as she finalized arrangements for a trip to India. Her travel partner pulls out at the last minute and Charlotte's father steps in forbidding her to leave alone. Failing to persuade her brother Eli to join her, Charlotte slips away under the cover of night setting off a chain of events that would change her life forever. Snatched from her world on the streets of Mumbai young Shanti now faces unspeakable horrors. Her short life had always been one of hardship but she'd always felt protected and loved by ten-year-old Ashok, her only family. Where was Ashok now? Would he come for her? Why was this happening? Eli and Ashok are determined to rescue their sisters from the dark world of human trafficking. Will their courage and love be enough to bring them home or will they find more than what they were looking for? Valley of Chaya, a story that rasps every emotion and certain to stir every readers heart.




Holy Woman


Book Description

Holy Woman chronicles the life, times, hardships, and legacy of Rebbitzen Chaya Sara Kramer, an extraordinary woman whom many considered a Jewish saint. A survivor of the medical experiments of Nazi death camp Doctor Joseph Mengele, she made a new life in Israel, where she married an unusually gifted mystic. In spite of penury and deprivation, the couple was an inspiration and guide to thousands. More of a life manual than a biography, this book explicates the profound life lessons by which Rebbitzen Kramer lived. Author Sara Yoheved Rigler draws the reader into the inner circle of her own close relationship with the Rebbitzen. Herself a serious searcher, Rigler spent 15 years in an Indian ashram before coming to Israel to reconnect with her Jewish origins. Refreshingly written and elegantly relevant, Holy Woman is a book for spiritually oriented persons who yearn to learn secrets of personal greatness from a truly hidden and humble Jewish luminary.







Becoming Eve


Book Description

The powerful coming-of-age story of an ultra-Orthodox child who was born to become a rabbinic leader and instead became a woman Abby Stein was raised in a Hasidic Jewish community in Brooklyn, isolated in a culture that lives according to the laws and practices of eighteenth-century Eastern Europe, speaking only Yiddish and Hebrew and shunning modern life. Stein was born as the first son in a dynastic rabbinical family, poised to become a leader of the next generation of Hasidic Jews. But Abby felt certain at a young age that she was a girl. She suppressed her desire for a new body while looking for answers wherever she could find them, from forbidden religious texts to smuggled secular examinations of faith. Finally, she orchestrated a personal exodus from ultra-Orthodox manhood to mainstream femininity-a radical choice that forced her to leave her home, her family, her way of life. Powerful in the truths it reveals about biology, culture, faith, and identity, Becoming Eve poses the enduring question: How far will you go to become the person you were meant to be?




Here and There


Book Description

A heartfelt and inspiring personal account of a woman raised as a Lubavitcher Hasid who leaves that world without leaving the family that remains within it. Even as a child, Chaya Deitsch felt that she didn’t belong in the Hasidic world into which she’d been born. She spent her teenage years outwardly conforming to but secretly rebelling against the rules that tell you what and when to eat, how to dress, whom you can befriend, and what you must believe. Loving her parents, grandparents, and extended family, Chaya struggled to fit in but instead felt angry, stifled, and frustrated. Upon receiving permission from her bewildered but supportive parents to attend Barnard College, she discovered a wider world in which she could establish an independent identity and fulfill her dream of an unconfined life that would be filled with the secular knowledge and culture that were largely foreign to her friends and relatives in Crown Heights, Brooklyn. As she gradually shed the physical and spiritual trappings of Hasidic life, Chaya found herself torn between her desire to be honest with her parents about who she now was and her need to maintain a loving relationship with the family that she still very much wanted to be part of. Eventually, Chaya and her parents came to an understanding that was based on unqualified love and a hard-won but fragile form of acceptance. With honesty, sensitivity, and intelligence, Chaya Deitsch movingly shows us that lives lived differently do not have to be lives lived apart.




The Time of Green Magic


Book Description

Five starred reviews! “An instant classic.” —The New York Times Book Review From award-winning author Hilary McKay comes “a memorable family story” (Booklist, starred review) about a girl adjusting to her new home—with the help of a little magic. When Abi’s father marries Max and Louis’s mom, their families start over together. Abi suddenly finds herself the middle child, expected to share far too much—especially with grubby little Louis. Then they move into an eerie, ivy-covered house, big enough for all of them. But for the children, strange things start to happen in that house. Abi reads alone, and finds herself tumbling so deep into books, they almost seem real. Louis summons comfort from outdoors, and a startling guest arrives—is it a cat or something else? Max loses his best friend…and falls in love. Meanwhile, Louis’s secret visitor is becoming much too real. Now Abi, Max, and Louis must uncover the secrets of their new home—for there can be danger in even the most beautiful magic. From award-winning author Hilary McKay comes a story that is at once enchanting and thrilling—if you don’t get lost in it first.




Stempenyu


Book Description




Watchtower


Book Description

In a land brought to life by warriors and lovers, war and honor, the legendary tower Tornor Keep is invaded by raiders. No longer the watchtower at the winter end of a summer land, Tornor turns to a young prince with the hopes that he might protect the future of the enchanting land.




Sotah


Book Description

Beautiful, fragile Dina Reich, a young woman in Jerusalem's ultra-Orthodox haredi enclave, stands accused of the community's most unforgivable sin: adultery. Raised with her sisters to be an obedient daughter and a dutiful wife, Dina secretly yearned for the knowledge, romance, and excitement that she knew her circumscribed life would never satisfy. When her first romance is tragically thwarted, she willingly enters into an arranged marriage with a loving but painfully quiet man. Dina's deeply repressed passions become impossible to ignore, finding a dangerous outlet in a sudden and intense obsession with a married man, with terrible consequences. Exiled to New York City, Dina meets Joan, a modern secular woman who challenges all she knows of the world and herself. Set against the exotic backdrop of Jerusalem's glistening white stones and ancient rituals, Sotah is a contemporary story of the struggle to reconcile tradition with freedom, and faith with love.




The Chronicles of Tornor Trilogy


Book Description

From a two-time winner of the World Fantasy Award, this epic trilogy is a “marvelous blend of fantasy [and] realism” (Marion Zimmer Bradley). Tornor is a land of warriors and lovers, a diverse place where devotion knows few bounds and honor stands strong in the face of adversity. Spread across generations, these three novels feature a trio of courageous heroes as they come of age in a magical world. In the World Fantasy Award–winning Watchtower, Tornor Keep is the legendary tower that protects the winter end of a summer land. But when Tornor is overrun by raiders, Prince Errel and the tenacious warrior Ryke must fight the usurpers to save their home. In The Dancers of Arun, a student must learn to control his gifts. As the scholar and scribe of Tornor, Kerris has been in training for the past seventeen years. But it’s not until his brother Kel—of the Cheari culture—teaches him the psychic art of patterning that the city of Elath comes under attack and Kerris must draw on his new talents to fight the dangers of psychic warfare. In the epic conclusion to this fantasy saga, The Northern Girl, a young servant must find her inner strength as she hides a magical talent. The visions begin when Sorren is only thirteen years old and she’s marked as a member of the White Clan of Arun. But this honor of being a witch frightens Sorren and she does not want to come within the Tanjo and serve. Instead, she’s determined to keep this gift a secret for as long as she can—whatever the cost may be. Elizabeth A. Lynn’s groundbreaking series was one of the first to feature same-sex relationships as an accepted part of a fantasy world. Filled with provocative ideas, haunting prose, and boundless imagination, the trilogy will captivate fantasy lovers both new and old.




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