false 0 0 false false Sun Sep 30 00:00:00 -0700 2001 Tue Aug 25 09:41:05 -0700 2009 Tue Aug 25 09:42:07 -0700 2009
Much as I loved the historical backdrop of the book (the author definitely did his research), it’s the characters that drive the story. There’ s a pretty big cast of them, heroes and heroines from both time periods who learn to pool their strengths as they build their new world. The book also includes three “mixed time” romances, and it’s because of them that I can’t recommend this book.

First, there are some very explicit bedroom scenes. As an Orthodox Jew, I felt I had to skip those, which in most cases meant skipping whole chapters and understanding, “Couple X is happy now.” But my biggest objection of all is to the portrayal of the 17th century Jewess, Rebecca Abarbanel, who becomes the girlfriend of Mike Stearns.

In the beginning, I loved Rebecca. Though she is supposed to be a Marrano, a Jew posing as a Christian and fleeing the Inquisition, she is portrayed as a practicing Jew. She is so tzniusdig (modest) that she smoothes her skirt over her knees out of sympathetic embarrassment for the scantily clad 21st century girls. I thought that was a beautiful detail, very true to a frum woman’s sensibilities. But over time, Rebecca becomes “liberated.” She is not only Mike’s national security advisor, she is the town’s news anchorwoman, all of which is fine with me, but part of her “liberation” includes using curse words and sleeping with Mike before their wedding day. Is that supposed to be an improvement in her character? Is being ladylike necessarily backward? I, for one, don’t think so.

For these reasons, I cannot rate this book. From the standpoint of entertainment, it deserves a 5, but I cannot in good conscience recommended it to anybody. As much as I enjoyed it, I’m convinced that reading this book, for me at least, was nothing short of a sin. ]]>