Woman of Valor
After a devastating breakup with her college sweetheart John Hogan, budding journalist Sally Sterling dives into her work at Chicago Magazine to escape her sorrows. When her editor assigns a series of feature stories on local ethnic communities, starting with the Orthodox Jewish enclave of Skokie, Sally stumbles into a world she never knew she needed. Although her mother is Jewish, Sally was raised in a wealthy Christian suburb of Detroit as the daughter of one of Michigan's prominent senators. Religion was the furthest thing from her mind.
But as the women welcome her into a world that feels more like home than anything she's known, Sally is hooked. A year later, she meets Barry Lieberman on a blind date and falls fast. Over the next eight years, Barry and Sally build a happy life full of passion, partnership and parenthood. She even reconnects with her Jewish grandparents, who move to Chicago to be closer to her. While so much about her changes, Sally retains her passion for running along the shores of Lake Michigan.
And then, Sally's life takes an unexpected turn. John Hogan finds her online. While Sally's reconnected with friends from her past, this feels like crossing a line. Still, she's curious about why John reached out. At the same time, Sally learns that her eldest son, Donny, has been physically abused at school. While Barry is equally angered, they have different ideas about what to do, putting them at odds for the first time in their marriage.
Lonely in the rift with her husband and exhausted from battling the community grapevine, Sally seeks distraction in John's apologies. When she realizes her mistake, Sally tells John to leave - but he won't. What happens next throws everything into a tailspin.
Will Sally lose the happiness she so carefully constructed? Or could this shakeup be just what she needs to finally define her life for herself?
Earn by promoting books
Earn money by sharing your favorite books through our Affiliate program.
Become an affiliate
When Sally Lieberman's Orthodox family is faced with a traumatic scandal, the fallout pits husband and wife against each other. Sally, anguished and unmoored, grapples with the shocking revelation, while finding strength and comfort through running. There, she questions her Jewish identity, her marriage, and ultimately the man she believed was the love of her young life. What ensues is a moving story of family, sacrifice, and the power of mature, fulfilling love. Golodner is a wonderful writer who tackles tough subjects with sensitivity and wit while delivering a heartfelt, satisfying read.
Rochelle B. Weinstein, Bestselling author of This Is Not How It Ends
The literary and film worlds have devotedly explored the constraints imposed on women in contemporary religious Jewish communities, often concluding that escape from those communities is the only redress for strong thoughtful women. Lynne Golodner's Woman of Valor offers a different premise and alternate solutions to the tropes of misogyny, communal insularity and subjugation that characterize many representations of ultra-orthodox communities. Sally walks the reader through her life, beginning 10 years into her choice to become an orthodox Jew, willingly leaving her secular upbringing on the heels of a humiliating, ruinous breakup with her first love. Occasional doubts and memories of her former life sometimes intrude but do not disrupt - until events at her son's school and a casual reconnection to her former lover change everything, calling into question her choices and threatening her hard-won stability and contentment. Golodner's skill in developing Sally's character- flawed, authentic and dimensional- keeps the reader engaged in real conflicts without resorting to caricature. Sally's resolution of these dilemmas avoids the all-or-none dichotomies, and is nuanced in a believable way. This Woman of Valor tells an important contemporary story of faith, love, devotion and self-determination.
Barbara Stark-Nemon, author of Even in Darkness & Hard Cider
An engaging and thought-provoking exploration of identity, faith, family, and love. What if? This essential question is in some ways at the heart of Woman of Valor. What if my life were different? Lynne Golodner has written a brave heroine who inhabited two worlds and ultimately chooses the one readers least expect -- but where there is symmetry and beauty in rules and tradition.
Nancy Sharp, author of Both Sides Now
Set in a world most will never experience, Lynne Golodner's fascinating novel about an Orthodox Jewish woman's fight to protect her children from a threat within her community explores the most universal of themes. This thought-provoking story of a marriage in crisis raises tough questions about family love and loyalty, devotion to one's faith, and what it means to truly belong to a community. A deeply relatable tale in an intriguing setting.
Tammy Pasterick, author, Beneath the Veil of Smoke and Ash
Overflowing with wisdom and a testament to deep, abiding love, Lynne Golodner has penned a riveting and propulsive account of a mother and wife caught between worlds, a past she ran away from that returns to haunt her and an uncertain future that threatens the sanctity of her home. Exquisitely written and profoundly human at its core. WOMAN OF VALOR is a must-read.
Ly Ky Tran, author of House of Sticks: A Memoir
