California girl Lola has her life all set up: business degree, handsome fiancé, fast track career, when suddenly, without warning, everything tragically implodes. After years fruitlessly searching for love, marriage, and children, she decides to take the radical step of seeking spirituality and meaning far outside the parameters of modern life in the insular, ultraorthodox enclave of Boro Park, Brooklyn. There, fate brings her to the dysfunctional home of newly-widowed Jacob, a devout Torah scholar, whose life is also in turmoil, and whose small children are aching for the kindness of a womanly touch.
While her mother direly predicts she is ruining her life, enslaving herself to a community that is a misogynistic religious cult, Lola’s heart tells her something far more complicated. But it is the shocking and unexpected messages of her new community itself which will finally force her into a deeper understanding of the real choices she now faces and which will ultimately decide her fate.
Review
“Reading Naomi Ragen is like having a warm visit with an old friend, complete with tea and rugelach....In An Unorthodox Match, as the title implies, a little rebellion goes a long way, and Ragen deftly guides us through these moral quandaries. Whether love or the law prevails, her novel and its conclusion is a worthy study in the richness and variety of our enduring people.”?Jewish Book Council
“A splendid book.”?San Diego Jewish World
About the Author
NAOMI RAGEN's novels include The Ghost of Hannah Mendes, The Covenant, The Sisters Weiss, and The Devil in Jerusalem, and have been international bestsellers. Her weekly email columns on life in the Middle East are read by thousands of subscribers worldwide. An American, she has lived in Jerusalem for the past forty years and was voted one of the three most popular authors in Israel.