Loaded Blessings

Alternating between Inquisition-era Spain and modern day Israel, Loaded Blessings is the story of a family who loses almost everything as they flee into exile, but is left with a powerful heirloom that reaches across time.

Abi Segil, an American archaeologist, jumps at the chance to examine artifacts from a sunken ship discovered off the coast of Tel Aviv. Ever since she inherited a centuries old Sabbath candlestick holder, she has been yearning to find its counterpart. She believes it could be among the artifacts of the medieval wreckage.  

Five centuries earlier, in Castilian Seville, Sancia Pareja watches her community succumb to the horrors of the Spanish Inquisition. She is eventually forced to make a gut-wrenching decision: convert from her Jewish faith, leave the only land she’s ever known, or accept death at the hands of a royal edict. When her Catholic friend, Baltasar, crafts a set of bronze candlestick holders for her to take on her journey, she has no idea how his gift will reverberate through time.

Includes an extensive, facts within the fiction, appendix and a list of  informational resources.