The Hidden Palace by Helene Wecker has all the ingredients in it. It has great plot, well defined and relatable characters. I wasn’t certain that a spin-off of Golem and the Jinni would be pretty much as captivating as the first novel yet it truly was. I liked how it tied up some old strings and I acquainted us with fascinating and thoughtful new characters along the way.
The story in this novel continues from the point where The Golem and the Jinni left off. We follow the two as they proceed with their inhuman lives in the midst of the ocean of mankind that is New York City in the early1900s.
The story ranges more than fifteen years including 1st world war, the sinking of the Lusitania, the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire, and the catastrophe of the Titanic and happens in New York City and portions of Syria. The plot follows majority of the characters from the primary novel, we likewise meet a Jinniyeh (a female Jinni) who is impervious to iron. She is an orphaned, orthodox young girl who had helped her rabbi father make a golem to battle the pogroms in Russia. In addition to that we meet Yosselle, the new golem himself.
This was one of those Novels that you can’t put down. But don’t have any desire to read excessively fast as you don’t want it to finish. The author did an excellent job in moving you back into the world if your memory of the details in The Golem and the Jinni are hazy. It was an outright pleasure to return to this world; all that feels so all around fleshed out and the characters and their inspirations feel like real individuals.
It was magnificent to spend time with the Golem and the Jinni once more, and to know how their relationship developed. I likewise truly appreciated the new characters that were presented. Toby’s central goal to unwind the mysteries in his life, and Kreindel’s struggles every now and again kept me up reading longer than I planned.
Overall The Hidden Palace by Helene Wecker is a fantastic follow-up to the previous novel. I LOVED this novel and I can’t wait to see what the author writes next.
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