Comment

Dec 22, 2014savtadina rated this title 4 out of 5 stars
The book's main character, Rebekah, is a journalist working for the New York Tribune, a populist newspaper. Rebekah's mother was a member of an ultra-Orthodox Hasidic (Jewish) sect in Brooklyn. The fled, had Rebekah (the father was not Jewish), and when Rebekah was six months old, the mother left them and returned to her roots (supposedly). Rebekah has been troubled by this all her life. She grew up in Florida but has come to NY for work, and possibly to learn more about her roots. Rebekah also has a severe anxiety problem. The author obviously did a lot of research and was writing about something she knows. She is a journalist specializing in crime and criminal justice and worked for the NY Post and also more professional news sources. She also had a Christian father and a Jewish mother. The story is set mostly in a Hasidic community in Brooklyn. The author does a good job of developing the main and side plots and of helping us to see the depth of several of the characters. Since this is the first of the "Rebekah Roberts" novels with the second one due out this spring, she seems to spend a good amount of time developing the main character, Rebekah. She is not very sympathetic at first but as I learned more about her, she began to grow on me. The one negative was the number of time she especially used the "f" word. I didn't find that it added to the story, especially the number of times it was used.