Rachel Trilogy

Rachel is a Jew living in Kishinev, Russia. At fourteen, Rachel knows that she wants more from life than the traditional role of wife and mother. She has dreams of being a writer. But everything is put on hold when a young Christian man is murdered and Rachel is forced to keep the murderer's identity a secret. Tensions mount as the Christians' distrust of the Jews is fueled by prejudice and rumor. While Rachel keeps the truth to herself, she watches as lies and anti-Jewish propaganda leap off the pages of the local newspaper, inciting Christians to riot against the Jews. Violence breaks out on Easter Sunday, 1903, and when it finally ends, Rachel finds that the person she loves most is dead and that her home has been destroyed. As she struggles to survive the aftermath of the riots, support comes from someone totally unexpected, when a young Christian named Sergei turns against his father, a police officer complicit in the riots, to help Rachel. With everything against them, the two young people find comfort in the bond that is growing between them, one of the few signs of goodness and hope in a time of chaos and violence.

It is 1904, and Rachel and her family are leaving Russia to escape the continuing riots against Jews. They take the Trans-Siberian Railway across the country and board a ship to Shanghai. Life is difficult and strange in this new city, but Rachel's luck changes when she finds a job writing for a newspaper. Meanwhile, Sergei finds that working in a factory in St. Petersburg is not only miserable but dangerous, and he soon joins the rebelling socialist workers. Through letters, Rachel and Sergei share their dream of moving to America to find a better life. The story that began in Rachel’s Secret continues in this, the second novel in the Rachel Trilogy.

Rachel, a young Jewish woman from a small town in Russia, has made an incredible journey. Forced to leave her homeland because of the anti-Semitic violence that killed her father, she made her way across land and sea to find refuge in Shanghai, China where she not only survived but managed to establish herself as a newspaper writer. No easy task for a woman at the turn of the 20th century. Now eighteen, Rachel remains separated from her sweetheart, Sergei, but she has finally realized her dream of coming to America. Arriving in California, she is inspired by the women she meets in the labor movement. She remains determined to go to school, and to continue her career as a journalist. Sergei, now in Moscow, is becoming more involved in the fight for democracy and freedom of speech. But his work distributing illegal newspapers and preparing for Gorky's revolution puts him at greater and greater risk of harsh reprisal from the Russian Tsarist government. Rachel won't let anything stop her in her goal of starting a new life - not poverty, not even the great San Francisco earthquake. But will she ever see Sergei again?