Official Review: Rachel's Secret by Shelly Sanders

[Alexandra Bayer]

Rachel is a Jew living in Kishinev, Russia, in the winter of 1903. Rachel knows she's no different from the Christians; unfortunately, the Christians don't believe the same. After the murder of Rachel's best friend, Mikhail, the Christian community blames the killing on the Jews. Rachel knows what really happened - but giving away her secret may end up hurting more people than helping. As the Christians strike out against the Jewish people of Kishinev, Rachel finds a friend in Sergei, a Christian boy her age. But when decisions have to be made, how will Rachel choose between safety and doing the right thing, and friendship or forbidden feelings?

Rachel's Secret isn't the type of book I would normally read - it's based in a foreign country, in the past, and it's written in third-person. These are three things that would drive me away from a book, normally. But I decided to give it a whirl and ended up pleasantly surprised. This book isn't like most other books based in the past which I've read before - I found I could identify with the characters better, and compare their lives to mine without seeing an incredibly drastic difference. However, I could still feel the aura of olden ages. This is a feat every other author who's based their book in the past with non-time traveling characters has not been able to do. I congratulate Shelly Sanders for proving it can be done.

I found this story to be very fast-paced. Mikhail is killed almost immediately in the beginning, after three different scenes, I believe: one featuring Rachel and Mikhail together, one of just Rachel, and then one of Mikhail, where he gets angry, races to the skating pond, and gets murdered. Then there's a bit of build-up of tension, but then it's back to being fast-paced as the Jews are attacked by the Christians. Then the consequences are dealt with and that's pretty much the whole story. I wish there had been more detail building up the characters, so we had gotten to know Mikhail better before he was murdered. Feeling some emotions over his death, even just remorse, would have livened up the book a bit more.

I found Rachel and Sergei's romance to be a bit awkward, stilted, and slightly unrealistic. I thought it was sweet, that the two of them could find positive emotions amidst the chaos, but first off, they were both extremely young. Age fourteen? I understand that everyone married much younger in the early twentieth century, but I don't think, even then, that real relationships could have been formed that would last a lifetime. Secondly, they didn't really know each other before Mikhail's death, but as soon as he is out of the way as competition, they began to feel things for each other. Why now, suddenly? Why not before? They didn't help each other through the grief or anything else that would create a bond between them. Thirdly, there was very little time spent between these two characters that would provide them with something to base their relationship upon. They were only together maybe four times throughout this novel, and most of the time their interactions were very brief; a few sentences here, a moment of content silence there. If these issues were amended, I would have found the relationship to be very much more realistic and enticing.

Rachel's Secret unexpectedly captured my interest, after I got past the very beginning. Overall, I would give this book a rating of three stars, since I enjoyed the storyline, even if I didn't enjoy the location, time, and person it was written in. It was a very good first novel for Shelly Sanders, though. I would recommend this book to anyone who looks for mystery, young love, and difficult prejudices.