Purchase
A Novel
She Writes Press
September 2025
On Sale: September 16, 2025
256 pages
ISBN: 1647429641
EAN: 9781647429645
Kindle: B0DV67H9DZ
Paperback / e-Book
Add to Wish List
Historical | Coming of Age
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 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. As she travels, she learns of the danger and importance of her work, with its coded symbols, 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 at every turn.
| 
© 2003-2026