Leeches

The year is 854. Rahel, a 17-year-old Jewish girl, is preparing to meet her fiancé for the first time. She cannot know that even as she stands observing herself in the mirror, an enemy of her father is making his way to her house. In mere minutes, she will have to flee, leaving behind her fiancé, her home, her possessions, and her identity.

Set in the Golden Age of Islam, Rahel’s journey takes her into the lives of wealthy merchants, Islamic theologians, Christian monks, illicit lovers, and shrewd innkeepers. But when she finds herself drawn, against all convention, to a traveler from the Far West, Rahel must confront the difference between what she once was and who she has become.

Hailed as the "Israeli Kite Runner" (The Bookseller), this international bestseller and publishing phenomenon is the bittersweet story of one family, one home, and the surprising arc of one woman's life, from the poverty of her youth to the glowing love and painful losses of her adult years.

Braiding together past and present, Every House Needs a Balcony tells the story of a young Jewish girl-a child of Romanian immigrants-who lives with her family in the poverty-stricken heart of 1950s Haifa, Israel. Eight-year-old Rina, her older sister, and their parents inhabit a cramped apartment with a narrow balcony that becomes an intimate shared stage on which the joys and dramas of the building's daily life are played out. It is also a vantage point from which Rina witnesses the emergence of a strange new country, born from the ashes of World War II. Later, after years of living abroad with her wealthy Spanish husband in Barcelona, Rina, longing for the simple life she has missed, returns to the Haifa of her boisterous youth, a move that soothes her soul but ultimately endangers her marriage.

Beautifully told, rich with questions of identity, love, and survival, Every House Needs a Balcony is an unforgettable social and historical portrait of a neighborhood and a nation. Steeped in the colors and smells, laughter and tears, of Rina Frank's own childhood memories, it is a heartbreaking tale about the deepest meanings of home.

***NATIONAL JEWISH BOOK AWARD WINNER (2012)***

From the award-winning, internationally acclaimed writer (“One of the best novelists alive” —Irving Howe): a Jewish woman marries a gentile laborer in turn-of-the-century Austria, with disastrous results.
 
A high school honor student bound for university and a career as a mathematician, Blanca lives with her parents in a small town in Austria in the early years of the twentieth century. At school one day she meets Adolf, who comes from a family of peasant laborers. Tall and sturdy, plainspoken and uncomplicated, Adolf is unlike anyone Blanca has ever met. And Adolf is awestruck by beautiful, brilliant Blanca–even though she is Jewish. When Blanca is asked by school administrators to tutor Adolf, the inevitable happens: they fall in love. And when Adolf asks her to marry him, Blanca abandons her plans to attend university, converts to Christianity, and leaves her family, her friends, and her old life behind.
 
Almost immediately, things begin to go horribly wrong. Told in a series of flashbacks as Blanca and her son flee from their town with the police in hot pursuit, the tragic story of Blanca’s life with Adolf recalls a time and place that are no more but that powerfully reverberate in collective memory.

'Brothers and Lovers' is a novel stretching from Apartheid South Africa in the  nineteen-fifties via a cruise up the East coast of Africa through the Suez Canal to London and Europe ending  in the first years of the 21st Century.

 An ill-fated love affair between  Raymond, a Jewish boy and Crystal, an Afrikaans girl,vehemently opposed both by his parents and her bullying father. Parallel to this is  bitter fraternal strife  between Raymond and his brother Larry.

The story describes the sectarian hatred amongst the white groupings of South Africa set against  the racist paternalistic attitudes toward the coloured and black populations.

In contrast there is a picture of London in the swinging sixties and seventies , a French Alpine Ski resort and life in England under New Labour at the turn of the Century.

 Historic events taking place alongside the progress of the story are described in italics.    

"A box of tissues should be included in the purchase price of this book.... I finished THE COLOR OF HEAVEN in a matter of hours, but I've no doubt the read and the lessons imparted through Sophie's story will stay with me... probably forever. THE COLOR OF HEAVEN is an incredibly poignant and unbelievably gripping novel, deserving Romance Junkies' highest rating."  --FIVE BLUE RIBBONS - Chris at Romance Junkies

A deeply emotional tale about Sophie Duncan, a successful columnist whose world falls apart after her daughter’s unexpected illness and her husband’s shocking affair. When it seems nothing else could possibly go wrong, her car skids off an icy road and plunges into a frozen lake. There, in the cold dark depths of the water, a profound and extraordinary experience unlocks the surprising secrets from Sophie’s past, and teaches her what it means to truly live...and love.

Full of surprising twists and turns and a near-death experience that will leave you breathless, this story is not to be missed.

"A gripping, emotional tale you'll want to read in one sitting." - New York Times bestselling author, Julia London

"Brilliantly poignant mainstream tale." – 4 ½ starred review, Romantic Times

About the Author

Julianne MacLean is a USA Today bestselling author of more than 15 historical romance novels, including her popular American Heiress series published by Avon/Harper Collins, and her recent Highlander Trilogy, published by St. Martin’s Press. She is a three-time RITA finalist with Romance Writers of America, a two-time winner of the Bookseller’s Best Award, and winner of a Romantic Times Reviewers’ Choice Award for her novel LOVE ACCORDING TO LILY. Her books have been translated into many languages, and she is currently working on a new Regency historical trilogy. For more information about the author, visit www.juliannemaclean.com.