From Publishers Weekly
Ragen, an American writer who's lived in Israel for more than 30 years, blends tragedies of the past with headline news of today in her gripping, emotionally charged sixth novel. It's 2002, and the Margulies family—oncologist Jonathan; his pregnant, American-born wife, Elise; and their daughter, Ilana—are contentedly living in a Jerusalem settlement, until one day, on their way home, Jonathan and Ilana are kidnapped by Hamas. Elise's frantic call to her Bubbee Leah in Brooklyn reunites four women—now grandmas and great-grandmas—who, as girls, made the titular covenant: if they survived Auschwitz, they would become "one person, risking everything, giving everything, to help each other live in happiness all the days of our lives." Leah gathers up fellow New Yorker Esther, now a cosmetics millionaire; Paris nightclub owner Ariana; and Polish political activist Maria to help find the kidnap victims. It's a race against time, as the women wield their considerable influence and the Israeli army desperately tries to intercede with the kidnappers before the captives are killed. Ragen weaves in deeper, more serious undertones than the thriller plot suggests, touching on the stubborn pride and the serious purpose that keeps Israelis fighting (or, in some cases, not fighting) for their fragile country, "the land that God promised to the Jewish people in his Covenant to Abraham."
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From Booklist
When Elise and Jon moved into their home in Maaleh Sara, Judea, they didn't realize that they would soon be considered "illegal occupiers" and that terrorists might be "laying in wait." Indeed, one day the unthinkable happens: Jon and the couple's young daughter, Ilana, are taken hostage at gunpoint and ransomed for an impossible political price. When Elise calls her grandmother Leah in America, she sets in motion a series of sprawling events that spring, at least in part, from an oath made at Auschwitz. Blending past and present, Ragen outlines some of the hugely complicated issues that exist in the Middle East today, and though her political sympathies seem clear early on, as events play out and more characters (perhaps too many) enter the mix, there are some welcome surprises. Innocents become political pawns, and politics becomes personal in this raw, poignant novel wrapped around a decades-old conflict.
Stephanie ZvirinCopyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
