Isabela’s Way

For fans of Ruta Sepetys’s Salt to the Sea, this coming-of-age tale of one fourteen-year-old girl’s escape from early-seventeenth-century Portugal’s Inquisition, achieved with the help of a clandestine band of allies, will thrill and inspire.

In early-seventeenth-century Portugal, Spain, France, and Germany, dangers are plentiful – especially for those of Jewish heritage. Non-Catholics have been expelled from Spain, and the Inquisition has now come to Portugal to impose its prohibitions. Fourteen-year-old Isabela, an obedient ‘New Christian’ with a talent for needlework, believes she has nothing to fear from the Inquisition. But when a mysterious woman arrives with a message from Isabela’s traveling father, the girl must leave her home and embroider her way along the clandestine network of sanctuaries created to conduct Conversos, or secret Jews, to safety.

A host of supporters and spirit guides, as well as one special young man, assist Isabela as she escapes the Inquisitors and makes her way across countries and cultures. Along the way, she learns of the danger and importance of her work and is shocked to discover her family’s true origins.

In this enthralling coming-of-age tale of resistance, love, and danger, Isabela employs her talent and fierce determination to find her way despite the powerful forces that buffet her every step of the way.

Barbara Stark-Nemon weaves a beautiful tapestry of stories, as elegantly embroidered as the linens that Isabela weaves. Reminiscent of Rachel Kadish’s best seller The Weight of Ink, Isabela’s Way is a meticulously researched and elegantly written novel of secret histories, fierce determination, and ultimately love. Mary Morris, author of Gateway to the Moon and The Red House

Barbara Stark-Nemon takes us on a riveting physical and emotional journey as Isabela flees from the Inquisition, even as she must come to terms with newly revealed truths about her family. This moving, deeply researched tale has the pace of a thriller, all while examining questions of loyalty, love, and truth. Rebecca D’Harlingue, author of The Lines Between Us and The Map Colorist

Poignant, riveting, historically accurate – a gem! Genie Milgrom, author of My Fifteen Grandmothers, writer and producer of Between the Stone and the Flower- the Duality of the Conversos