(Fiction, 336 pp. Hebrew, 2022; English Translation, 2024)
Nina, a beautiful Israeli teen living in a boring town, desperately wants an adventurous adult life beyond the drudgery circumscribing her Ukrainian emigre single mother’s fate. Having been enticed into a relationship with a shady older man, she realizes she is being subjected to manipulative sexual predation and flees abruptly into the night. She is discovered and invited in by Carmela, an addled elderly woman who mistakes Nina for her beloved granddaughter, now living in the United States. While Nina embraces a new identity and provides Carmela with the care Carmela’s family in America fails to offer, her mother is desperate to find her, as is her ruthless former lover. The new neighbors might be onto Nina’s subterfuge, even as real love might save her.
- Review by Linda Gradstein, The Jerusalem Post, April 27, 2024
- Review by Potpourri News, April 2024
- Review by Ruth Eglash, Hadassah Magazine, March 2024
- Review by Benjamin Selesnick, Jewish Book Council, March 4, 2024
- Review of the Hebrew edition by Haaretz, June 30, 2022
- Interview with author, by Renee Ghert-Zand, The Times of Israel, April 7, 2024
- Background on author’s personal life (as wife of Yair Lapid, former Prime Minister of Israel), The Times of Israel
- Author’s website
