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Coming May 17, 2022

From the Award-Winning Author of Rashi’s Daughters and 50 Shades of Talmud

Comes a Powerful Romance with a Purpose

The Choice: A Novel of Love, Faith, and the Talmud
by Maggie Anton, author of Rashi’s Daughters, Banot Press, ISBN: 978-0-9763050-3-3, $16.99

It’s Brooklyn, New York, and the year is 1955. Dr. Robert Salk discovers a vaccine for polio. The Dodgers play the Yankees in the World Series. The McCarthy hearings deport communists while the new state of Israel takes shape in the Middle East. Young Rabbi Nathan Mandel hears a knock at the door.

Expecting journalist H. M. Covey, he is shocked to find attractive Hannah Eisin on the other side. Hannah reveals that Covey was her birth name before her father died and her mother married Samuel Eisin. She uses an ambiguous byline because she’s writing for a Yiddish newspaper where female columnists are rare.

After the interview, Hannah convinces Rabbi Mandel to teach her Talmud, something forbidden by Jewish law that could cost him his job if discovered. Things start innocently enough, but soon the gloves come off as “Annie” and “Nate” discover they are passionate about much more than Talmud.

Maggie Anton has written a powerful love story with a purpose: to expose the many ways the Torah and Talmud have been interpreted unfavorably toward women. Anton is fearless in the subjects her characters tackle during their weekly sessions:

  • Niddah & Mikveh. Rules regarding sex and menstruation.
  • The Minyan & The Drash. Why Jewish women are excluded from services.
  • The Shanda of Mesirah. A rabbi refuses to turn a pedophile over to police.

Anyone interested in the role of women in Judaism will find Maggie Anton’s The Choice an unforgettable story that sets the record straight!

ABOUT MAGGIE ANTON:

Maggie Anton is an award-winning author of both fiction and nonfiction and a Talmud scholar with a deep understanding of Jewish women’s history. Her research into the great Jewish scholar Rashi, who had no sons, led to the award-winning trilogy Rashi’s Daughters, followed by a two-book series, Rav Hisda’s Daughter, a National Jewish Book Award finalist and a Library Journal pick for Best Historical Fiction. She lives in Los Angeles, California.

ADAVANCE PRAISE FOR THE CHOICE:

“Maggie Anton gives evocative voice to the generation of our mothers, whose questions and bold solutions, especially about the most intimate of subjects, laid the foundation for the contemporary transformation of women’s status in Jewish learning and law.” —Rabbi Susan Grossman, DHL, Senior Rabbi, Beth Shalom Congregation, Columbia, Maryland, and coeditor of Daughters of the King

“The Choice takes us into the Jewish world of love and learning and the love of learning. One can only be grateful for such an intriguing and engaging work. Maggie Anton’s combination of history, imagination, and feminist reading of classical Jewish texts is impressive.” —Rabbi Laura Geller, Rabbi Emerita, Temple Emanuel of Beverly Hills, and coauthor of Getting Good at Getting Older

“Maggie Anton utilizes her characters’ authentic voices to address social justice while still entertaining the reader with an engaging romance.” —Jackie Ben-Efraim, Special Collections Librarian, American Jewish University

“Maggie Anton’s new novel embeds issues concerning the intersection of modernity, belief, and ritual practices within a lively, intellectually engaging romance. . . . Best of all, the romantic relationship of Hannah and Nathan evolves in sync with their scintillating discussions of various Talmudic passages, from both traditional and critical perspectives, leaving us wondering just how much more enriched Jewish life would be today had women been participants in the Talmudic dialectic all along.” —Stuart S. Miller, Professor of Hebrew History and Judaic Studies, University of Connecticut at Storrs, and author of At the Intersection of Texts and Material Finds

WHAT THEY’RE SAYING ABOUT MAGGIE ANTON’S NOVELS:

“True to her mission as a historical novelist, Maggie Anton offers a woman’s take on what has been a mostly male enterprise.” —Jonathan Kirsch, Los Angeles Jewish Journal

“Maggie Anton demonstrates just how sex-positive Judaism is.” —Rabbi Elliot Dorff, Rector and Distinguished Professor of Philosophy, American Jewish University

“Anton delivers a tour de force . . . [Readers] will fly through the pages and come away wishing for more.” —Library Journal (starred review)

“A compelling combination of drama, suspense, and romance.”—Lilith magazine

For further information, review copy requests, or to schedule an interview with Maggie Anton, please contact Rachel Tarlow Gul at Over the River Public Relations: rachel@otrpr.com.


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Lovable Jen Dixon is back in the hilarious follow-up to Class Mom! YOU’VE BEEN VOLUNTEERED by bestselling author, Laurie Gelman, launches today!

Laurie Gelman (yes, her husband is that Gelman of Live with Kelly and Ryan fame) has written another funny AND relatable tale that takes place three years after Class Mom.  Somehow Jen Dixon has ended up as the class mom once again—this time for her son Max’s third grade at one of Kansas City’s great bastions of primary education, William H. Taft Elementary. While juggling hearth, homework, and hubby Ron, she’s been saddled with even more school responsibilities plus a micromanaging PTA president. Add that to dealing with her grown daughters’ sudden displays of independence (must all millennials get piercings?) plus her aging parents’ need for some parenting of their own, and she finds herself pulled in too many directions for one middle-aged, minivan-driving temptress to handle.  

Gelman is a New York City-based writer and mother of two who spent 25 years as a broadcaster in both Canada and the US – including stints on Good Morning America, The Early Show on CBS, and The Mom Show – before trying her hand at writing novels.  Her first book, Class Mom garnered rave reviews from several places including The New York Times, People magazine, and Good Housekeeping, and it was recently included in Parade’s list of books Mom will love .  Gelman’s writing has been compared to Lauren Weisberger’s, Maria Semple’s and Sophie Kinsella’s.

This is a fun book – a perfect summer read or comical book to ease you into the stressful Back to School season.

To celebrate the release of YOU’VE BEEN VOLUNTEERED, Laurie is participating in a month-long book blog tour that features reviews, author Q&As, and features. We hope you will follow along and enter to win the daily prizes. You’ll find all the details here:
http://lauriegelman.com/blogtour.html

Happy Publication Day, Laurie! It’s been a pleasure working with you!

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Blog Tour for Jerome Charyn’s Latest Historical Fiction Kicks Off 1/6!

The blog tour for critically acclaimed author, Jerome Charyn’s latest novel, THE PERILOUS ADVENTURES OF THE COWBOY KING: A Novel of Teddy Roosevelt and His Times kicks off on Sunday, January 6, the 100th anniversary of Teddy Roosevelt’s death. Check out the full schedule.

In this novel, which The Washington Post calls “tremendous fun” and Kirkus Reviews calls, “colorful, entertaining” in its starred review, Charyn gives new dimension to Roosevelt, revealing Manhattan’s swampy underbelly after the Civil War, TR’s farcical and dangerous expeditions to the Dakota Badlands, and his personal anguish at losing his mother and wife on the same day.  Like the best of E.L. Doctorow, historical detail is supported by a keen grasp of language and marked by a lack of sentimentality about the past.  With a colorful supporting cast—including Buffalo Bill Cody, Eleanor Roosevelt, Leon Czolgosz (President McKinley’s assassin), plus Josephine, the loveable mountain lion who was the mascot of the Rough Riders (seen with Roosevelt on the cover), and the Rough Riders themselves, whom Roosevelt never deserted, THE PERILOUS ADVENTURES OF THE COWBOY KING is historical fiction and Jerome Charyn at their very best. 

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My Mother’s Son by David Hirshberg

FigTree Books LLC, publisher of the best literature of the American Jewish experience, has published My Mother’s Son, a debut novel by David Hirshberg. 

The story is told by a radio raconteur revisiting his past in post-World War II Boston, the playground and battleground for two brothers whose lives are transformed by discoveries they never could have imagined. From the opening line of the book, “When you’re a kid, they don’t always tell you the truth,” the stage is set for this riveting coming-of-age story that plays out against the backdrop of the Korean War, the aftermath of the Holocaust, the polio epidemic, the relocation of a baseball team, and the shenanigans of politicians and businessmen. Hirshberg deftly weaves together events, characters, and clues and creates a rich tapestry of betrayal, persecution, death,loyalty, and unconditional love that resonates with today’s America.

My Mother’s Son has received impressive accolades, including:

  • Gold Medal, 2018 Independent Publisher Book Awards, RegionalFiction
  • Winner, 2018 National Indie Excellence Awards, Best RegionalFiction,
  • Winner, two New York City Big Book Awards:Historical Fiction and Debut Fiction.

It has also received strong review coverage including a starred review in both Booklist and Library Journal and:

The Jewish Book Council

The Jewish Advocate (Boston)

The Washington Jewish Week

The Reporter Group

Too Jewish Radio Podcast

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EXILE ON BRIDGE STREET receives rave reviews from Irish and mainstream press

EXILE_BRIDGE_STREET_Eamon_LoingsighWe’ve been fans of Eamon Loingsigh’s writing for some time now. We had the privilege to work on his debut novel, LIGHT OF THE DIDDICOY, and now we’re excited to be helping to spread the word regarding his new work, EXILE ON BRIDGE STREET.

 

Reviews are starting to come in, and the Irish press, indy press — ALL the press — are loving this new novel. Check out  what they have to say:

 

“In his beautiful, passionate prose, Loingsigh — an Irishman himself — continually reminds us of the motherland and the suffering of Irish emigrants. . . . EXILE ON BRIDGE STREET is a gangster story that reads more like “Robin Hood” than The Godfather because of these men’s inner strength and the love they have for each other. . . .
It’s also an intimate look at criminals whose lives have been hardened by oppression and weathered by storms, while inside their rough shells they hide soft hearts.”
—Washington Independent Review of Books

 

“When accomplished Irish American writers address the lives and experiences of the early 20th century Irish in New York they are recording, but also in a deeper sense also reclaiming a lost heritage. This is painstaking work that’s worth celebrating in its own right, but then to give us a vivid portrait of these flinty people in all their complexity and courage is a thing to cheer about. EXILE ON BRIDGE STREET, author Eamon Loingsigh’s new novel, is a follow up to Light of the Diddicoy, and it’s a high wire act of creativity and reclamation that deserves the widest possible audience.”
 —Irish Central“

 

Loingsigh has an urgent story to tell. And he tells it well. This is a street-level history of how the other half has always lived, the kind of story rarely worried over in classrooms or political campaigns. Loingsigh’s great strength is his unsentimental take on the immigrant experience which—despite the rancor of today’s debate—often acquires a sepia tone when it is discussed in the past tense. EXILE ON BRIDGE STREET should be required reading for those who rail about how today’s immigrants “refuse to assimilate.”
–Brooklyn Rail

 

[EXILE ON BRIDGE STREET], a follow-up to his previous gripping novel The Light of the Diddicoy, is set on the rough-and-tumble streets in the shadow of the Manhattan Bridge, where Irish and Italian immigrants fight fiercely for control of the docks and all the jobs and money that comes with that control…On the surface, Loingsigh’s book mines Brooklyn’s gory and glorious Irish past.  But it is also the quintessential read for 21st century Brooklyn. Not only is it all too plausible that Liam McGarrity’s grandchildren are cops of firefighters living in Marine Park.  But consider all of those immigrants coming into Brooklyn these days. Love? Death? Money? Struggles in the homeland? Surely they can relate to a thing or two Liam had to endure as he was becoming an American in Brooklyn. 
—Irish Voice

 

More reviews to come soon!

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