Hidden Star

Corinne Joy Brown

Mar 2016 · FriesenPress

About this eBook

 Imagine awakening to a new reality of who you are, revealing a hidden past that has shaped your family’s history for centuries. Fact, not fiction, this experience has been shared by thousands of descendants of Sephardic Jews who fled Spain and Portugal in the 15th and 16th centuries, seeking safe haven from the ruthless Spanish Inquisition. Many had already converted to Catholicism, but learned that conversion was not enough to save their lives. They established new communities throughout the world, living as Catholics on the outside, but guarding a precious Jewish heritage in secret, an observance reduced over time to mere ritual and custom.

Meet a modern day member of New Mexico’s northern Hispanic settlements who finds a new truth about herself and her family in the unexpected tumult of her life. The disappearance of her two children leads her on an inner journey and an outer one, into the past and toward a newly imagined future where she can finally choose how she wants to live and who she wants to be. Hidden Star was inspired by the emergence of Spanish Catholics and Protestants in Mexico, Texas and the American Southwest, who believe they have Jewish roots. Today, many have thoughts of return, or have already begun the process. A work of fiction, this book was inspired by interviews with actual descendants, plus events that shaped this culture’s history, and suggests that in an era of religious freedom, we’re more alike than different – whatever our heritage, we want a better world.

www.corinnejoybrown.com/

About the author

 Corinne Joy Brown is a multi-published author, professional writer and editor who lives in Colorado. In addition to a passion for Western history and culture, she’s devoted her first two novels to the question of identity: MacGregor’s Lantern, a story about Scots in the frontier West, and Sanctuary Ranch, a saga of love and transformation.

The history of crypto or hidden Jews in the American Southwest, descendants of those who fled the Spanish Inquisition more than 500 years ago, became the ultimate stage for questions about selfhood and belief. Current editor of HaLapid, the journal of the Society for Crypto-Judaic Studies, Corinne is a past president of the Denver Woman’s Press Club, a Fellow at the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs, and was a presenter at the inauguration of the Anusim Center for Return in El Paso, Texas.