Searching for Angels - A Book Review

May 2018 Literature

By Ruth Abraham
Hardcopy, with soft cover.290 pages.
CreateSpace IndependentPublishing Platform. 2017
Amazon $15.95; Kindle: $5.50
Reviewed by Lenore Hahn

Ruth Abraham's novel Searching for Angels grabs your attention from the start.

The author is an art therapist who lectures about art therapy at Beit Berl College in Kfar Saba. Her book When Words Have Lost Their Meaning: Alzheimer Patients Communicate Through Art has received rave reviews. She is also the author of short stories found in various anthologies.

This is Anna' Freeman's story. She is a woman of twenty-five trying to adjust to life in Israel. The novel begins when she receives a shocking telephone call in her Tel Aviv apartment from her native Johannesburg. She cannot believe that her beloved sister has died suddenly from a massive heart attack, leaving a grieving husband and an inconsolable six-year-old daughter. Anna immediately leaves her life and her boyfriend in her newly adopted county to travel to South Africa.

The settings are both South Africa and Israel. They become very real places to the reader, showing the differences of life in both countries. At times, Anna struggles with her commitment to each. She is challenged by her relationship with her Israeli lover and her duties to her family in Johannesburg.

It is difficult to put down Searching for Angels, since one becomes so emotionally involved. The novel presents life situations with which the reader can easily identify. It is well written in very clear prose.

I am looking forward to Ruth Abraham's next novel since this was so enjoyable.

About the author

Lenore Hahn

Lenore Hahn was born and bred in America. She has a B.A. and M.A. degrees from Hunter College in New York, as well as a certificate in Administration and Supervision. She taught Spanish in Spring Valley High School in New York State and became chairperson of the Foreign Language Department. Other languages that were taught there included French, Italian, Latin and English as a Second Language and all were under Lenore’s supervision. In 2006 she and her husband Herb made aliyah to Israel from the U.S. They spend more than six months in Israel and the remaining months in Fort Lee, New Jersey. When in Israel Lenore does volunteer work and participates in many ESRA activities.