Enchantress by Maggie Anton

Enchantress: A Novel of Rav Hisda’s Daughter by Maggie Anton

Historical fiction/historical fantasy

Hisdadukh is the daughter of an important Rabbi in fourth-century Babylonia. As a child she was asked which of his star pupils she would like to marry, Rami or Rava. She answered that she would marry both of them. This set up a rivalry between them that worsened when Hisdadukh married Rami.Â After Rami’s early death, many people including Hisdadukh blamed Rava, so how could she ever marry him?

This is the second book in the story of Hisdadukh.Â They really need to be read together to understand the full story.Â Jews in Babylonia at this time lived in a world of study and of magic.Â The men in the story are all Torah scholars.Â They spend their time debating fine points of law.Â These debates and rulings were eventually written down and became the Talmud.Â The characters in these stories are taken from references in the Talmud.

The women at this time lived in a world of magic.Â This is based on archeological evidence of curse tablets and amulets found.Â In these books the magic is real and Hisdadukh is a strong practitioner.Â She treats illness and injuries and attends childbirths.Â She makes protective amulets for children and pregnant women.

As she gets more powerful she becomes a rival to other women and needs to learn to defend herself and her family.Â Rava also comes back to her.Â They are drawn together even though she does not fully understand or trust him.Â He seems suspicious of her also but their lives keep putting them together so they need to learn to deal with each other.

A lot of the conversations in the book is either detailed points of law or magic.Â At times it gets hard to remember that you are actually reading historical fiction and not reading about a made up fantasy world.

I really like this author’s books so I was excited to be involved in the book tour for Enchantress.