Jo from Little Women. Lizzie from Pride and Prejudice. An entire childhood spent reaching to see myself in any main character. I thought everybody grasped at straws, looking for the tiniest personality trait in the heroine and holding onto it for dear life. I didn’t know that there were readers out there who read a book and thought: she’s just like me. I didn’t know there were readers who saw themselves on the page.

So when I read Rena Rossner’s THE SISTERS OF THE WINTER WOOD in my 30’s, and experienced this feeling for the first time, literal tears fell down my cheeks. My soul flew. I was overjoyed at finally understanding what publishing professionals meant when they said readers deserved to see themselves represented in literature, and sad for the younger version of myself who never got to.

Set in a village on the border of Moldova and Ukraine, this book is about two Jewish sisters, Liba and Laya, who must face challenges, temptations, love, and the truth about their own magical identities. It’s Jewish fantasy, grounded in the shtetl, and I didn’t know this was something I needed until I had it. Now I want more. This book is laced with more than Jewish identity, it’s laced with Judaism itself. Torah and Chassidic dynasties and mitzvot. Yiddish and Hebrew. Ancient stories and destinies tied together with young Jews deciding for themselves how best to step into world.

I identified most with Liba, whose body is built for the shtetl, who feels the weight of her feet hitting the ground when she runs, who does not move with grace. Liba, who hungers for Ashkenazic comfort food and wishes to cleave to her Judaism. Liba, who is a little bit of a yenta, and wants to protect her sister Laya from the temptations of non-Jews. Liba, who ultimately accepts what she cannot control when her love for her sister matters more than what she thought was important.

But most of all, I was inspired to write more authentically. To embrace the Yiddish and Hebrew and Aramaic that is part of my own speech, dig into my Torah knowledge for world-building my stories, and let my characters be Orthodox Jews.

Rena Rossner has done something magical with THE SISTERS OF THE WINTER WOOD, and again with her latest release, THE LIGHT OF THE MIDNIGHT STARS. Jewish fantasy, Orthodox characters, and a chance for us to ourselves on the page. That’s magic to me.

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