Publisher: Amazon Crossing

#BlogTour #PromoPost The Woman Beyond the Sea by Sarit Yishai-Levi (translated by Gilah Kahn-Hoffmann) @OverTheRiverPR @AmazonPub #SaritYishaiLevi #thewomanbeyondthesea #translatedfiction #israeliliterature

#BlogTour #PromoPost The Woman Beyond the Sea by Sarit Yishai-Levi (translated by Gilah Kahn-Hoffmann) @OverTheRiverPR @AmazonPub #SaritYishaiLevi #thewomanbeyondthesea #translatedfiction #israeliliterature Title: The Woman Beyond the Sea

Author: Gilah Kahn-Hoffmann, Sarit Yishai-Levi

Published by: Amazon Crossing on Mar. 21, 2023

Genres: General Fiction

Pages: 415

Format: Paperback

Source: OTRPR

This beautifully written, multi-generational story traces the paths of three women who lead entirely separate lives. There’s Eliya, a young woman who thinks she has finally found true love with her charismatic and demanding husband, an aspiring novelist, until he ends their relationship in a Paris café, spurring her suicide attempt; next is Lily, Eliya’s mother, who vanishes for long hours every day, and Eliya has no idea where she is; and a third, mysterious woman who has abandoned her newborn baby on the doorstep of a convent on a snowy night in Jerusalem.

Seeking to heal herself, Eliya is compelled to piece together the jagged shards of her life and history. Her heart-wrenching journey leads her to a profound and unexpected love, renewed family ties, and reconciliation with her orphaned mother, Lily. Together, the two women embark on a quest to discover the truth about themselves and Lily’s origins…and the unknown woman who set their stories in motion one Christmas Eve.

As each woman confronts upheavals in her life, Yishai-Levi, a truly gifted storyteller, masterfully ties the three together, striking chords of love, hate and despair.

THE WOMAN BEYOND THE SEA is a very personal novel that emerged from longing and pain. But at the same time, it’s a book about forgiveness and acceptance and love that conquers all,” says Yishai-Levi. “Gilah’s translation is wonderful and I’m excited to bring this story to English readers.”

 

This novel is available now.

Pick up a copy from your favourite retailer or from one of the following links.

         

 

 

Thank you to OTRPR and Amazon Publishing for providing me with a copy.

 

About Gilah Kahn-Hoffmann

Gilah Kahn-Hoffmann moved from Montreal to Jerusalem after studying theater, literature, and communications at McGill University. Starting out as a freelance journalist, translator, writer, and editor, she became a feature writer at The Jerusalem Post and, subsequently, editor of the paper’s youth magazines. Later, during a stint as a writer at the Israel Center for the Treatment of Psychotrauma, she discovered how fulfilling it is to work for the benefit of others and moved to NGO work in East Jerusalem and the developing world. In recent years, she’s come full circle to her first loves and spends her best hours immersed in literary translation.

Photo Credit: Avi Hoffmann

About Sarit Yishai-Levi

Sarit Yishai-Levi is a renowned Israeli journalist and author. In 2016 she published her first novel, The Beauty Queen of Jerusalem. It immediately became a bestseller and garnered critical acclaim. The book has sold hundreds of thousands of copies in Israel, was translated into 17 languages, and was adapted into a TV series that won the Israeli TV award for best drama series, and became a Netflix hit. It also won the Publishers Association’s Gold, Platinum, and Diamond prizes; the Steimatzky Prize for bestselling book of the year in Israel; and the WIZO France Prize for best book translated into French.

Yishai-Levi’s second novel, The Woman Beyond the Sea, was published in 2019. It won the Publishers Association’s Gold and Platinum prizes and has already been translated into several languages.

Yishai-Levi was born in Jerusalem to a Sephardic family that has lived in the city for eight generations. She’s been living with her family in Tel Aviv since 1970.

Photo Credit: Maya Baumel.

#BookReview Tears of Amber by Sofia Segovia (translated by Simon Bruni) @MSofiaSegovia @SimonBruni @OverTheRiverPr @AmazonPub #TearsOfAmber #womenintranslation #Mexicanauthor #internationalreads #TranslatedFiction #AmazonCrossing

#BookReview Tears of Amber by Sofia Segovia (translated by Simon Bruni) @MSofiaSegovia @SimonBruni @OverTheRiverPr @AmazonPub #TearsOfAmber #womenintranslation #Mexicanauthor #internationalreads #TranslatedFiction #AmazonCrossing Title: Tears of Amber

Author: Sofía Segovia, Simon Bruni

Published by: Amazon Crossing on May 1, 2021

Genres: Historical Fiction

Pages: 494

Format: ARC, Paperback

Source: Amazon Publishing, OTRPR

Book Rating: 10/10

From the bestselling author of The Murmur of Bees comes a transportive novel of two families uprooted by war and united by the bonds of love and courage.

With war looming dangerously close, Ilse’s school days soon turn to lessons of survival. In the harshness of winter, her family must join the largest exodus in human history to survive. As battle lines are drawn and East Prussia’s borders vanish beneath them, they leave their farm and all they know behind for an uncertain future.

But Ilse also has Janusz, her family’s young Polish laborer, by her side. As they flee from the Soviet army, his enchanting folktales keep her mind off the cold, the hunger, and the horrors unfolding around them. He tells her of a besieged kingdom in the Baltic Sea from which spill the amber tears of a heartbroken queen.

Neither of them realizes his stories will prove crucial and prophetic.

Not far away, trying and failing to flee from a vengeful army, Arno and his mother hide in the ruins of a Königsberg mansion, hoping that once the war ends they can reunite their dispersed family. But their stay in the walled city proves untenable when they find themselves dodging bombs and scavenging in the rubble. Soon they’ll become pawns caught between two powerful enemies, on a journey with an unknown destination.

Hope carries these children caught in the crosshairs of war on an extraordinary pilgrimage in which the gift of an amber teardrop is at once a valuable form of currency and a symbol of resilience, one that draws them together against insurmountable odds.


Review:

Poignant, thought-provoking, and profoundly moving!

Tears of Amber is a powerful, impactful tale that sweeps you away to the late 1930s, early 1940s and into the lives of the Prussian people, specifically two children, Ilse and Arno, as they endure hardship, displacement, atrocities, and the loss of their innocence and childhood as their families try to escape and survive the advancing, barbaric Red Army.

The prose is eloquent and expressive. The characters are courageous, vulnerable, and resilient. And the plot is a heart-wrenching, utterly absorbing tale about life, love, loneliness, familial relationships, heartbreak, war, loss, grief, guilt, hope, loyalty, and survival.

Overall, Tears of Amber is an exceptionally atmospheric, beautifully written novel that transports you to another time and place and immerses you so thoroughly into the personalities, feelings, and lives of the characters you can’t help but be affected. It is without a doubt one of my favourite novels of the year that does an incredible job of highlighting the indomitable spirit of humanity to survive, endure, conquer, and love in even the harshest environments and situations.

This book is available now.

Pick up a copy from your favourite retailer or from one of the following links.

         

 

 

Thank you to OTRPR and Amazon Publishing for providing me with a copy in exchange for an honest review.

 

About Simon Bruni

Simon Bruni is an award-winning literary translator with a focus on contemporary Spanish and Latin American fiction and a wealth of experience translating books and articles within the humanities and social sciences.

Simon combines his profound knowledge of the Spanish language with a supple command of written English, working creatively to bring Spanish voices to life in their new host language. His translations of Paul Pen’s The Light of the Fireflies and Sofía Segovia’s The Murmur of Bees have both become international bestsellers.

About Sofía Segovia

Sofía Segovia was born in Monterrey, Mexico. She studied communications at Universidad de Monterrey, thinking mistakenly that she would be a journalist. But fiction is her first love. A creative writing teacher, she has also been a ghostwriter and communications director for local political campaigns and has written several plays for local theater. Her novels include Noche de huracán (Night of the Hurricane), El murmullo de las abejas (The Murmur of Bees)--which was called the literary discovery of the year by Penguin Random House and named Novel of the Year by iTunes--and Huracán. Sofía likes to travel the world, but she loves coming home to her husband, three children, two dogs, and cat. She writes her best surrounded and inspired by their joyous chaos.

Photo by Juan Rod rigo Llaguno.

 

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