The Hidden Palace

 OK, this may sound strange when talking about a book in the fantasy genre, but I think this plot was too far fetched .  The Hidden Palace written by Helen Wecker is a follow up to her really great novel, The Golem and the Jinni.  The original book about a Golem who is created by a disgraced Rabbi and then shipped to New York City, to marry a man who inconveniently dies and leaves her alone, and a Jinni, released from a bottle but captured in human form, who also finds himself alone in New York, was improbable but by the end of the book was captivating and almost believable.  

I was excited to see that Wecker had brought back the Golem, Chava, made of river clay, and the Jinni, Ahmad, who is created fire, continuing to develop their awkward but sweet romance.  Chava, who can hear what mortals are thinking, works in a bakery and helps humans in trouble, sometimes to her own detriment.  Ahmed, who spends his days as a smith, enjoying the heat and hard labor of bending tin into beautiful objects.  At night the two come together and wander the streets of Manhattan.

In building this relationship between Chava and Ahmad, there is coming together  Jewish and Arabian folklore in harmony.  But in this new novel, Wecker shakes up the peaceful relationship between our two main characters, showing their more dangerous sides.  The undercurrent that is never really gone, from their characters.  As Chava and Ahmad become more human, the negative qualities of their makeup threatens to pull them apart and could ultimately destroy them.  Around them in the early days of the 20th century, history also affects their lives, the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory  fire and the sinking of the Titanic are two historical events mentioned int he book.

But then into the reality of their world the author beings in two more characters, Yossle, a Golem who is brought to life and only thinks to destroy to protect its master and Dima, a wild jinni, made of wind and fire, selfish in her wish to deceive and destroy a human to get what she wants.  These characters add a bit of suspense and anticipation to the plot but also for added a feeling of forced believability to a storyline that I was really enjoying develop.