Reviews

Review by Sherry Vernick Ostroff

Rahila’s Secrets, by Judit Neurink, is the sequel to The Jewish Bride, however one does not need to read the first book to understand the story of the protagonist, Zara Mahmoud. Zara, who lives in the Kurdish area of Iraq, had always thought she was Muslim, but when uncovering family secrets, she finds out she is really Jewish. This discovery is complicated by the fact of the coming danger that now faces her country and especially the Iraqi Jews: the expansion and takeover of Iraq by ISIS. Zara’s only escape, along with her mother, is to flee to Israel. It is her newfound Jewish lineage that saves her. On the surface, the story that Neurink presents is one I was familiar with from the twenty-teens news cycle: the fall of Iraq, the ISIS invasion, and the atrocities. But through Zara’s character, I learned so much more history: the plight of the Iraqi Jews; the kidnapping of young Jewish girls and their forced marriages to Muslim men; and the Yemenite Children Affair - after the creation of the State of Israel. This last one, I knew the least about. I found Rahila’s Secrets engaging, although wading through Zara’s ever-growing family tree was a bit of a challenge. However, the many names and connections did not deter my reading. There is a family tree at the end of the book, but I didn’t discover it until I finished reading. Lastly, as a treat, Neurink provides a lengthy author’s note which did not disappoint. I highly recommend this book for anyone who is interested in learning about often-kept secrets of history. In this I commend Neurink. We all need to know the full story.

Sherry Vernick Ostroff is a writer of six books, among them Remember Me Not.

 

 

Review by Lori Escalera

Rahila's Secrets is a wonderful novel based on historical occurrences, delving into themes of personal and historical trauma, identity, and relationships. The story is set against the complex backdrops of the Middle East as Kurdistan eliminated its Jewish populations and Israel achieved statehood. Through its narrative, Judit Neurink explores how individual and collective histories shape the characters' lives, focusing on their struggles with the impact of past traumas on their present-day relationships. Judit skillfully examines the lingering effects of past events on personal identity that are forced onto the story’s characters as they are faced with elements out of their control.

The settings of Israel, Kurdistan, and Turkey provide a rich backdrop, allowing the novel to explore the impact of cultural and historical forces on individual lives, revealing how we are so very much the same and yet also so very different. The author is very knowledgeable of the complexities of these regions and does a superb job illustrating how history and place influence the characters' journeys. These themes are interwoven throughout the novel, creating a layered exploration of how history, identity, and relationships intersect.

The book builds to an extraordinary world of intrigue, richness, and suspense, holding my attention spellbound until the very last pages! Kudos to Judit Neurink for bringing us another exceptionally beautiful and rich story about the difficulties of traversing over time and space to build our lives and personal identities, embracing the bad, the good, and everything in between, which make up tremendous life stories.

Lori Escalera is a cross medium artist

 

Review by Sherri Moshman-Paganos

If you’ve ever thought of doing DNA testing, then Judit Neurink’s book DNA Does Not Lie, People Do is the definitive book for you. She combines impeccable research, including lively and informative interviews with experts, with her own interest in sampling a number of DNA tests herself. The result is a fascinating look at the current popularity of DNA testing. In the book, the author particularly looks at Jewish interest in testing. We are warned that DNA tests are not something to go into lightly! Although it’s usually important for us to find out about our past, Neurink warns us that results in some cases can be devastating as well. This is the perfect book for us to be informed about both the positive and negative aspects of DNA tests.

Sherri Moshman-Paganos is a former teacher and journalist

 

French Deception

Review Martha Rincon

Loved it! The story kept me hooked from the beginning. It's the perfect combination of suspense, romance and a great history background that I could understand even not being well-versed in Iran Iraq war politics. Looking forward to reading more from this author.

On Amazon.es

Martha Rincon is an influencer on Instagram and YouTube, as Simplemente diosas

French Deception

Review Caroline Swettenham

This is a thriller that keeps you guessing right up to the last page. A real page-turner that takes you to Iraq and France to meet intriguing characters. You will not be disappointed by Judit's latest work, which draws on her extensive knowledge and experience as a journalist in Iraq.

 

Caroline Swettenham is an editor and translator in Athens

 

The Jealous Spy

Review by Rina Spigt

Some news items on TV I will never forget. Breaking news, real and raw: world history. Like on a Sunday in December 2003: ‘Ladies and gentlemen, we got him!’ A report of how Saddam Hussein was found in a cellar somewhere in Iraq’s countryside. We see a hole in the ground and a clochard: the long sought after and run down dictator.

I thought: ‘it’s like a movie or novel’. But I realized that the combination of journalism and fiction is not always a happy one.

Yet it is very well possible to write a suspenseful novel and situate it in an existing world. Judit Neurink’s latest novel is situated mainly in the Kurdish part of Iraq during Saddam Hussein’s cruel rule. She knows the decors and images there, as a journalist in the Middle East she saw them up close.

The story in short: Dutch journalist Anna is married to photographer Karim who is from Iraqi descent and was politically active in Iraq. While she is married to him and on a work trip in Iran, she falls in love with her colleague Davoud. Anna gets pregnant with Davoud’s daughter Zina, who Karim presumes is his child.

A large part of the story covers Anna’s and Davoud’s search to find Zina, whom Karim has kidnapped and taken to the Middle East. We are confronted with political intrigue in an atmosphere of threats and danger. But nowhere, the story loses its believability, this does not seem to be made up, it is real.

The scene I enjoyed most reminds me of the TV images I described: the farm and the hole under the ground where Saddam was found. Here, Neurink brings the three main characters in the book together. Here, the last conversation takes place, reluctant at first and full of questions, but then harder and more confronting. It’s about revenge and destruction, but also about ‘how to go on from here?’ And that’s exactly what I would like to know myself too.

It’s fiction, but it feels as if I was there.

Rina Spigt, journalist

The Good Terrorist  

Review by Chris Stirling

Judit Neurink’s book takes you places you really hope you never have to experience. Her vivid depiction of life inside the Caliphate is almost too real. A hateful world in which goodness is crushed by fear.

For those of us who barely skim the news which is reported, this opens our eyes wide to the horrors of many things never properly covered in our sanitised media. You can’t help but share in the protagonist’s miscomprehension of what human beings are prepared to do to each other in the name of religion. The book’s characters are well written, utterly believable, and brought to life not just by the events that befall them, but also by the emotions with which they respond to those events.

It’s immediately clear that Neurink has spent a lot of time in the region, growing to understand the particular idiosyncrasies of this awful chapter in the history of our planet. The book encourages us to think not only about how we respond to religion and the notion of terrorism, but more than this, it makes us consider the very nature of our humanity. You are left with a feeling of helplessness, of despair for how so many people can be so brutally marginalised, so close to home, without it registering on the average person’s daily news radar.

What happened in the Caliphate during the dark years portrayed in The Good Terrorist needs to be well chronicled, to bring home horrible truths and open our eyes to the atrocities we as humans can inflict on each other. In Judit Neurink, a skilful chronicler has been found, and the pages of her book are in every way as fascinating as they are traumatic. She knows that to simply tell the story of the horrors of ISIS would alienate readers, particularly those who don’t often find their fiction so framed by fact. So for every cruel machination of ISIS that is described, for every act of terror or wanton destruction, there is also a counterfoil.

We are shown how humanity in its purest form can flourish abundantly, if not always visibly, in the harshest of environments. We are told as much a story of love, hope and redemption as we are one of death, destruction and hopelessness. This is what makes this novel so good. The reader is constantly oscillating between the abject hopelessness of a situation, and the unbelievable bravery and courage of the love that counters it. The fundamental believability of what is in essence a work of fiction, comes quite clearly from the exposure the author has had to the situations described, but also from diligent and detailed research, and a brilliant understanding of human psyche. I look forward to reading much, much more from Judit Neurink in the coming years

Chris Stirling, Edinburgh

The Good Terrorist

Review by Quentin Sommerville

“The tension in Judit Neurink’s latest novel is like a weight upon your chest, rich in detail it captures the fear and uncertainty as Islamic State’s emerged, and the group’s ability to reach far beyond its borders into the lives and minds of recruits in the west.”

Quentin Sommerville, war reporter for the BBC