Lilian Nattel - The Singing Fire

1886:

The laneways of London's East End are littered with stubborn signs of survival: the steam from kettles of boiling laundry, the smokestacks belching coal dust, the chatter of tailors, piemen and thieves. Into this scene, full of dreams of independence, arrives a young Jewish woman, Nehama, who has crossed an ocean to flee the expectations of her family.

But in between the bustle of marketstalls and industry are constituents less benign, some searching for easy targets. Nehama, unable to speak English, is enslaved as a prostitute, a fate more vicious than the life she left behind. Yet with only the whispers of her deceased grandmother to guide her, she contrives her escape into the narrow alleys of the respectable East End, a hand's breadth away from the criminal warrens.

Those brutal memories enable her to help another runaway, Emilia, who arrives in London similarly ill-prepared, and pregnant. But Emilia refuses a hardscrabble life, seeking refuge among the privileged classes at the expense of her religion and even her baby, Gittel. As the two women walk their own separate paths, Gittel becomes their nexus; and Nehamah and Emilia arrive in places that hold some common ground.

Lilian Nattel masterfully brings to life a vanished world and the education of two determined women as they navigate a dangerous realm. Embracing the dilemmas of class, gender, culture and history, The Singing Fire marries Isabel Allende's magical touch with a unique imagination and a fearless voice.

Note From the Author: How I Came to Write This Book