the sisters of the winter wood rena rossner

Jews are blamed for the deaths of two gentiles whose bodies were found at the edge of an orchard a mysterious band of brothers peddling fruit occupies the town market and families disappear.

Just as the girls begin to come to grips with this new reality, their parents leave and a sense of foreboding infects Dubossary. Each girl is descended from a lineage able to morph, at will, into an animal counterpart: Liba into a bear like her father, Laya into a swan like her mother. Yankl implores their father to return, and before their parents embark on the journey, Liba witnesses them transform into animals-her father into a bear, her mother into a swan-forcing them to expose a long-hidden truth. Though held at arm’s length by the local Jews because their mother is a convert, the sisters live a relatively peaceful life till an unexpected visit from their father’s brother Yankl brings news of their grandfather’s illness in a nearby town. Dark-haired Liba-ungainly and dogged by a persistent hunger for meat-revels in Jewish study with her father, while Laya, who possesses the preternatural ability to communicate with the Kodari forest itself, is a free spirit animated by wanderlust, eager to break with the strictures of their insular community.

In their family’s cottage, nestled in the Kodari forest surrounding the town of Dubossary, they adhere in different degrees to their family’s Orthodox Judaism. Sisters Laya and Liba are different as night and day.

In a mix of historical fiction and fantasy, Rossner's debut weaves a richly detailed story of Jewish identity and sisterhood.

The sisters of the winter wood rena rossner