One Sentence Summary: In 14th century Eastern Europe, three Jewish sisters face change, persecution, and love and loss.

Honestly, I stopped reading the description after I saw this is Jewish-inspired. I don't know much about the religion and culture, so I thought The Light of the Midnight Stars would be a wonderful, informative read. It was initially kind of bewildering to be dropped in the Jewish world, but there's a handy glossary at the end and Rossner did an amazing job of weaving the translations in throughout the book so it was easy to figure out. Overall, this was an incredible delight to read, very informative, and astoundingly beautiful. Something of a cross between being an historical and a fairy tale, it was magical.

The Plot: The Stories of Three Sisters

The Light of the Midnight Stars follows three sisters: Hannah, Sarah, and Levana. They're each devout to their own degrees and have a somewhat prickly, yet loving relationship with their father, Rabbi Isaac. Throughout the story, they constantly seek their futures while a darkness looms overhead and they practice their secret magic.

Hannah has a way with plants and healing, which takes her into the duchess's home as she fights a mysterious illness. There, she meets the duchess's son, and their relationship has the power to ripple through Hannah's entire family.

Sarah is a daughter of fire, a daughter who wishes she were the son her father wanted. Always treated as a daughter, she's rebellious and meets a man who gives her both spiritual happiness and a future.

Levana is the daughter of stars. She watches the sky night after night, looking for her star, but is also a dutiful daughter who clings to her religion.

The Light of the Midnight Stars is an incredibly beautiful read. It felt like a cross between a fairy tale and a series of journals kept over the years. There was something magical and beautiful in the writing that created a dreamy experience. Based on historical fact and stories, it blends history and myth.

I loved that it focuses on the three sisters, that each sister was given her own unique voice. I did get confused from time to time, but their consistency shone through. It helped that each sister's story was based on one story or another. It was easy to keep their stories separate and to see how they spiraled together and apart. Of course, Rossner noted she took some liberties, but it all worked flawlessly together.

But it also feels like there are two distinct stories in this book. It opens with one, where the family is happily living their lives in Trnava, keeping to themselves and staving off what seems like the black plague. Everything seems quite set for the three sisters, and their lives seem fairly predictable. But then the terrible turning point happens and they flee through the forest in what felt something like a flight through fire, coming out on the other side as a completely different family. The about turn felt expected, but sudden at the same time. In many ways, the sisters felt exactly the same, but their parents and their lives had flipped. There was less of a focus on the Jewish religion and culture and it felt like the fairy tale took over.

Still, this is an incredibly beautiful read with a lot of depth and a lot of elements pulled together to form one amazing story.

The Characters: Sisters

The Light of the Midnight Stars is told by Hannah, Sarah, and Levana. They each see the world in their own unique ways, and it came out in how their chapters were told. Sometimes it was hard to tell if I was reading journal entries or not, but I think they each had their own unique way of telling their story. The one thing that always struck me was how young they are throughout the book. They're all in their teens, getting married and preparing to have their own families, so I always had to remind myself that times were different and it was quite normal for a thirteen-year-old to have her own family.

Hannah, as the oldest, felt the most mature, the most settled. She's eager to prove herself and use her powers to help. But she's also a girl with yearnings and desires. I loved everything about her, probably because she felt the most rooted. It was easy for her to take charge when she needed to, but she could always rely on her family to support her when she needed it.

Sarah felt very much like the fiery, rebellious middle child. Not quite as dutiful as her sisters, she feels the disappointment of their father the most. But all she wants to do is be treated like a son, to learn everything a son would because it might actually be for the benefit of her growing powers. I loved that she took life in both hands and worked to create her own destiny.

Levana came across as quite a dreamy child, but that could be because she spent so much of the book staring up at the stars, finding messages hidden in them. She was actually a bit harder to get to know as many of her chapters were short and focused mostly on her obsession with the stars. But she felt the most devout, the most rooted in her religion. I wished to have gotten to know her better, but she and her story absolutely broke my heart.

The Setting: 14th Century Eastern Europe

Set mostly in the town of Trnava and in Wallachia, The Light of the Midnight Stars has a strong Eastern European feel to it. It also definitely felt nothing like modern times in any way, so it was quite easy to believe I was stepping into 14th century Bohemia.

Trnava was actually a little difficult to imagine, but I got a general medieval European feeling about it. Most of their time in Trnava, though, seemed to be either at home or in the surrounding forest. As a lot of the story also happens at night, it felt a little dark with a forbidding, magical essence around it, but I also really liked how quaint it felt. I definitely got a feeling of a forest hiding something extraordinary and magical.

Wallachia wasn't too different, but I liked the duality of it being a home for anyone of any religious background while also being permeated with the fear of persecution. It also felt suitably medieval European with a nearby forest. What really set the two main locations apart, though, was the family itself and how their behaved in both. Somehow Wallachia felt brighter, probably because more of it felt like it was occurring during the day and the sisters were looking for a new, brighter future after the pain and suffering they had endured.

Overall: A Historical Fairy Tale

The Light of the Midnight Stars was such a beautiful book. I loved how history and tales were effortlessly wound together to create an amazing historical fairy tale. I loved how well and how deeply it delved into Jewish stories and Eastern European tales because it created such a rich fabric for the sisters. Everything about this book was well-crafted, though I wish it hadn't had such a strong pre- and post- feel to it when the family fled. Still, I really enjoyed the sisters. They were unique, but still had a strong sisterly bond and family ties. Overall, an incredible story.

Thank you to Angela Man and Redhook for a review copy. All opinions expressed are my own. ( )

This book missed the mark for me... I appreciate that the fairy tale this book was (partially) based upon isn't the most cheerful of fairy tales, but this whole book held a sense of despair and gloom. Religious persecution quite rightfully is a heavy topic, and I should have anticipated that there would be depressing moments in this book. I hoped that there would be moments of brevity to break up the grimness, but alas - those moments never came.

It's a well-written book and I'm sure it will be very popular for many people. Whether or not I was in the wrong mindset or mood whilst reading it, my feelings for this story are apathetic at best.

(I also recommend that people read other reviews for content warnings - some of it is rather dark and could definitely trigger negative emotions for sensitive readers.) ( )

A story that defies categorization that relays the tale of three Jewish sisters with ancient magic in their ancestry who grow up in a Hungarian village. Part Jewish tragedy,part women’s actualization tale, and part lyrical fairy tale, this book entrances with the power of great storytelling. I felt like I’d woken up from a dream of woods and sky and nature when I finished the book!reading! ( )

Rossner's books are intricately plotted, well written, and sometimes painful to read -- they're so dark at times. The latter accords well with the Jewish history that Rossner is attempting to portray. The characters face a lot of trauma and not necessarily any happy endings. Characters that I have come to love end up coming to a terrible end, and it shocks all the more that they are not "dispensable" secondary or tertiary characters. Nonetheless, once I get into the book, I am gripped, and read long after I am telling myself that I really ought to put the book down and do something else.

One of the things that I love is that the settings are unusual for books written in English -- Middle Europe, an area with a complex history often very distinct from what is going on in Western Europe. I also love the mixture of historic detail and fantasy -- two of my favorite things in books.

As tightly written as this is, there are a couple of incidents that I expected Rossner to expand on. When Sarah first creates fire, and her family is congratulating her, she is repelled by her grandmother Nagmama because "when she touches me, I see only darkness, and smell something burnt and rotten, like smoke." Since this is apparently is something new, I expected it to be an omen or foretelling. Likewise, when she spies on the men's rituals in the woods, one of them simply disappears. She is told that he "nullified his existence." Is this a form of suicide, or does it do something to fight the Black Mist?

I look forward to more Rossner books, even knowing that I may have to brace myself to read them. ( )

There are many similarities between this book and Rossner’s first book, The Sisters of the Winter Wood. For that first book that alternates the narrative between two sisters, the author was inspired to investigate her family’s own experiences, and used both Jewish lore and native folktales to tell her story. Set in the early 1900a, it was a tale of Jewish resilience while educating readers about Jewish history, traditions, and language.

This book, also inspired by what was known about the author’s family from even earlier times, is set in 14th Century Eastern Europe (it begins in 1359). It involves three sisters as opposed to two, allowing the author to incorporate an additional fairy tale into her story. There is also a great deal of magic, or perhaps magical realism, that expands upon the metaphors used to tell the story. For example, the deadly Black Death (or bubonic plague) is described as a “Black Mist” - a blight that took over Europe, creating fear and magnifying superstitions and prejudices against the Jews among people in the Middle Ages.

Each of the three sisters - Hannah, Sarah, and Levana - narrates alternating chapters. Each finds love with an unexpected suitor, and these choices put them as well as their family in danger. The family ends up torn apart, and the sisters find themselves locked inside horrific fairy tales, with the prospects of happy endings ever father from their reaches.

Evaluation: One can’t help but be impressed by Rossner’s scholarship. I do feel she tried to cram in too many things into one story, however, and overall, it was just so very dark. Alas, in this respect the author stays true not only to Jewish history, but to the original versions of fairy tales by the Grimms and others, whose stories were characterized by graphic violence, sexual abuse, wicked parents, cruelty and hostility towards children, Anti-Semitism, and more. The idea of magic being a possibly good thing is relatively recent; Rossner adheres to traditional interpretations. ( )