Showing results for "water,-water" in Jewish

The Water and the Wine is set on the Greek island of Hydra in a '60s artistic community. The author lived there as a child. The main focus is on Leonard Cohen and his lover/muse, Marianne Ihlen. Each night, the artists and writers meet and discuss their ideas about life, art, philosophy, and religion. The Silver family (loosely based on the author's own family) arrive on the island and are drawn into a world of creativity and excitement but also infidelity, jealousy, and dysfunctional relationships. Ultimately, the novel asks the question: What is the price of creativity?

Luis de Santngel, chancellor to the court and longtime friend of the lusty King Ferdinand, has had enough of the Spanish Inquisition. As the power of Inquisitor General Toms de Torquemada grows, so does the brutality of the Spanish church and the suspicion and paranoia it inspires. When a dear friend’s demise brings the violence close to home, Santngel is enraged and takes retribution into his own hands. But he is from a family of conversos, and his Jewish heritage makes him an easy target.

In Many Waters is the gripping story of three orphans whose lives intersect on the island of Malta during our current, urgent refugee crisis. Zoe, a budding historian, comes to Malta with her younger brother Cal to learn more about their Maltese mother, as well as the mysterious circumstances surrounding their parents’ untimely deaths. The siblings’ well-mapped plans are derailed when Cal, who is a daily swimmer in the Mediterranean, discovers a girl floating in the sea, barely alive. The small, battered fishing boat on which she has journeyed from Libya to Malta capsized in a storm: Aziza is the sole survivor.

The year is 31 AD. It is five years into the Judean governorship of Pontius Pilate and the province ever stands on the edge of a knife. The Jewish religious leaders, the Sanhedrin, use their patronage with the Emperor to vent the slightest grievance, and the people themselves burn with a hatred for Rome. Pilate’s only military forces are Samaritan auxiliaries, little more than an undisciplined mob that abuse and torment the populace. The Emperor Tiberius finally relents and assigns to Judea a single cohort of legionaries to restore order.