The Light of the Midnight Stars is magical, heart breaking, and entrancing. It is one of those books that I fell into reading and didn’t emerge till the end. Told through the perspectives of three sisters, it is a testament to sisterhood and survival, to love and loss. Keep reading this book review for my full thoughts.
Summary
Deep in the Hungarian woods, the sacred magic of King Solomon lives on in his descendants. Gathering under the midnight stars, they pray, sing and perform small miracles – and none are more gifted than the great Rabbi Isaac and his three daughters. Each one is blessed with a unique talent – whether it be coaxing plants to grow, or predicting the future by reading the path of the stars.
When a fateful decision to help an outsider ends in an accusation of witchcraft, fire blazes through their village. Rabbi Isaac and his family are forced to flee, to abandon their magic and settle into a new way of life. But a dark fog is making its way across Europe and will, in the end, reach even those who thought they could run from it. Each of the sisters will have to make a choice – and change the future of their family forever.Deep in the Hungarian woods, the sacred magic of King Solomon lives on in his descendants. Gathering under the midnight stars, they pray, sing and perform small miracles – and none are more gifted than the great Rabbi Isaac and his three daughters. Each one is blessed with a unique talent – whether it be coaxing plants to grow, or predicting the future by reading the path of the stars.
When a fateful decision to help an outsider ends in an accusation of witchcraft, fire blazes through their village. Rabbi Isaac and his family are forced to flee, to abandon their magic and settle into a new way of life. But a dark fog is making its way across Europe and will, in the end, reach even those who thought they could run from it. Each of the sisters will have to make a choice – and change the future of their family forever.
Review
(Disclaimer: I received this book from the publisher. This has not impacted my review which is unbiased and honest.)
TW: antisemitism, off the page rape
This Jewish folklore inspired fantasy tells the story of three sisters. Sisters with dreams, loves, and hopes against a tide of chance encounters, intolerance, and cruelty. Rossner infuses The Light of the Midnight Stars with an ethereal quality. While many chapters of the story are told in poem form, all of the chapters maintain this sense of magic and gorgeous prose. With each chapter, and sister’s story, Rossner explores quests for power, immense loss, and hopeful yearning.
The Light of the Midnight Stars is a story made up of stories. A testament to the fact that stories are the fiber which hold us together. That through them we uncover truths we are afraid to spill in the harsh rays of sunlight. How they give meaning to what we cannot say. While I felt the ending was wrapped up pretty hastily, compared to the pace of the rest of the book, there’s no denying how lyrical, and heart breaking, The Light of the Midnight Stars is.
Overall,
The passages of hatred and intolerance were heart wrenching. Moments where cruelty and fear dominate the day. But The Light of the Midnight Stars is also about survival and the pain of re-invention. One might say it’s fairy tale inspired in the magical slivers of time, but I think it examines the shades of goodness, and cruelty, of humanity.
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