I received a free electronic copy of this excellent novel from Netgalley, St. Martin's Press and Naomi Ragen. Thank you all for sharing your hard work with me. I have read this novel of my own volition, and this review reflects my honest opinion of this work.

An Unorthodox Match is set in Boro Park, Brooklyn, NY in a modern time frame, peopled by many of the Orthodox Jewish members of that community, giving us an interesting and intimate look into the everyday lives, the heritage and the chosen lifestyles of these families of Jewish ancestry.

Leah Howard is the granddaughter of Orthodox Jews, but their daughter, Leah's mother Cheryl is a hippy and agnostic never-married liberated mother and her father a one-night-stand. Named Lola at birth, she chooses to go by Leah now that she is an adult, and after her job folds up and the senseless death of her fiance Josh, she is in the process of learning about her heritage and her religion.

Leah's Grandparents have passed, and her mother Cheryl is greatly opposed to Leah having anything to do with the religion Cheryl felt was a cult that had ruined her early years with its rules and rituals. Leah feels that the formality, the protocol, and teachings of the Jewish religion are just what she needs to put her life into perspective and learn to live with her loses. She desperately needs to have the support of both her religion and her community as she comes to face her future as it is, now.

One of her first decisions is to volunteer in the neighborhood and through using her computer and marketing skills, she soon has a good business shaping up. Then as she begins absorbing her immersion into the life of this community, she offers to volunteer in the afternoons in the home of a widower, Yaakov Lehman. Yaakov is deeply involved with full-time religious studies at the yeshiva. It has been months since the passing of his wife but their home is still in flux, with chores falling to the wayside and meals and laundry catch-as-catch-can. The income to support the family came from Zissele's outside employment, so money is fast becoming a problem, as well. Yaakov signs up for night classes in accounting so that he might be employable which adds to the time Shaindele has to put in on the household and siblings.

Leah immediately falls for the two youngest of the five Lehman children, Chasya is about three, and Mordechai is a little over one. Shaindele is 15 and worn out trying to cover the household chores, babysitting her young siblings and completing her school work. The two oldest children, sons, are away at a yeshiva in Baltimore, so don't add to the problems at home, but also cannot help. Fruma Esther Sonnenbaum, the mother of Yaakov's deceased wife Zissele, tries to help but she too is very tired and can't always be counted on.

The sky is falling. Things must change, difficult as change is. And the changes are the best part of this novel. The insular reactions and gossip are the worst. This family will make it through to the other side. I am pleased to recommend to friends and family. Though not a fast read, I felt this was an excellent story with an interesting lesson and folks that feel like family.

This story has an interesting premise and the characters were likeable. It was bogged down by too much religious text for me to fully enjoy the characters journeys. It will be popular for readers that enjoy Jewish fiction. I predict it will circulate well in my library even though I didn't personally enjoy it.

Leah is lost after many disappoint,Mets and a tragedy, leading her to find herself in the religious community of Boro Park. As a Baal teshuva, she tries to perform good deeds to get community acceptance, a difficult task since she does not have the family background. Yaacov, a religious Jew, lost his wife, and is struggling to keep his family going. Hoping for a marriage, he turns to matchmakers who disappoint him. How these two meet and what happens makes for a very absorbing novel. One of Ragen’s best, how the realities of not just religious communities, bu all humans, comes into play. Highly recommended.

I thought that this book would be interesting, but after I read a few pages and we got more into the orthodox religion, I realized that this story wasn't for me because I can't relate. I am Catholic. I thought the idea of a second chance kind of story would be interesting, but I just couldn't get into the story because I couldn't relate to the characters.

I received an ARC provided through NetGalley from the publisher for an honest review.

Synopsis:
California girl Lola has her life all set up: business degree, handsome fiancé, fast track career, when suddenly, without warning, everything tragically implodes. After years fruitlessly searching for love, marriage, and children, she decides to take the radical step of seeking spirituality and meaning far outside the parameters of modern life in the insular, ultraorthodox enclave of Boro Park, Brooklyn. There, fate brings her to the dysfunctional home of newly-widowed Jacob, a devout Torah scholar, whose life is also in turmoil, and whose small children are aching for the kindness of a womanly touch.

While her mother direly predicts she is ruining her life, enslaving herself to a community that is a misogynistic religious cult, Lola’s heart tells her something far more complicated. But it is the shocking and unexpected messages of her new community itself which will finally force her into a deeper understanding of the real choices she now faces and which will ultimately decide her fate.

Review:
This is the first book I've read from this author. It more than likely won't be my last. The book has elements that you don't typically find in books - or at least I don't. She was able to mix faith, love, and acceptance into a compelling story. The book, for me, was a little slow and you knew exactly what was going to happen when. So, there was no element of arc that you just knew you were going to embark on. Needless to say though that I did like the story. I just wish there was...more.

An Unorthodox March is a powerful and moving novel of faith, love, and acceptance, from Naomi Ragen, the international bestselling author of The Devil in Jerusalem.

This one was too much about teaching the religion than an actual plot about the characters. I'm interested in all kinds of religions, but sometimes I just want to read a book to zone out from the world, not have a religious lesson every other page.

This story attracted me since I have a connection to judaism.
To be honest, I was a bit afraid to find the book to be a shallow and improbable love-story. I was very pleasantly surprised. The characters are well-presented, multidimensional, each displays both positive and negative traits and they feel very real and relatable. As we follow Lola´s path, we are educated about different forms of judaism, especially about the life, religiosity, traditions and way of thinking of ultraorthodox Jews, and the authors lets the readers form their own opinions.
The books also deals with an often overlooked issue of women´s role in this community - full of responsibilities and necessity to adhere to social norms and expectations - that can become rather overwhelming.
I loved the story and its characters and will recomend the story to anyone who looks for a good romance with some extra educational value.

Yaakov, a Talmud scholar is grieving the loss of his wife, struggling to care for his children, maintain a house, and continue his studies. He is blinded by his grief, his financial burdens and his children are suffering. He leaves much of the home responsibilities and child care to his troubled teenage daughter who is also struggling with their new reality. Leah is trying to find herself, wants a better life, after losing her job with a company closed down for fraud, after a long term relationship that ended in tragedy. She finds herself on a journey to her Jewish roots, to the orthodox Jewish community in Boro Park, Brooklyn, wanting to learn, to be become “frum” (“Devout or pious. Committed to the observance of Jewish religious laws that often exceed the bare requirements of Halacha, the collective body of Jewish religious laws.”) I was thankful for the glossary included at the end which I used numerous times to understand Yiddish or Hebrew words or phrases.

A grieving family in crisis, a grieving woman on a journey and when their paths cross, it was obvious, where this story would take us. It probably was obvious from the title. But in spite of its predictable end, the multiple layers of the story and characters I cared about kept me reading. I’m glad I did. I learned a lot about the rituals that are part of the daily lives of ultra Orthodox Jews and I found it fascinating to see these religious beliefs and rigid restrictions play out on a day to day basis. We meet in this community devout and religious people, dedicated to the Torah and the customs, but as human nature will have it, people are flawed. They make mistakes. They have regrets. They sometimes blame HaShem (God ) for the tragedies that befall them. They question their beliefs. Certainly it’s about this particular group of people, but there are universal themes here - grief, forgiveness, friendship and family and the beautiful way that fate sometimes brings people together. A lovely story.


I received an advanced copy of this book from St. Martin’s Press through Netgalley.

This book was a bit of a struggle for me. I have read every one of Naomi Ragen's books, and enjoyed most of them. However this one fell a bit flat for me. The beginning was enjoyable enough, the middle was okay and the ending was predictable. The book went a bit too much out of its way to make a point about the ultra-Orthodox Jewish world, rather than the characters sometimes. What really struck me was the chapters where we learned more about Leah's past, when she was Lola and what lead her to Boro Park and this lifestyle. I wanted more of those. I understood where the characters were coming from, but some of it was just too sappy for me. The descriptions were great, the writing itself strong but lacked some character development that I wanted more of.

Wow! I came into this book with a family history of Judaism and basic knowledge of some Yiddish/Hebrew words, but there was so much I didn't know! Thank goodness there were definitions in the back of the book. The overarching story was done very well - I was not a huge fan of the flashbacks, but I understood why they were necessary. I'd never read a book from the perspective of the Orthodox community, so this book really gave me a lot of insight. Well done!

Just about four years ago, I read and enjoyed one of Ragen's earlier novels and since then, I have added more of her titles to my ever-growing TBR. This one, her latest release, is certainly well-written. Ragen creates lifelike characters that down to the smallest detail feel authentic. Ragen sets each scene - even the more distant past scenes - with precision. The reader can smell the challah, feel the heat from the candles and clearly see each character.

While I was familiar with some of the Hebrew and Yinglish words already, there were some that I had to Google. I wish that the glossary that was provided had been at the start of the book rather than being uselessly buried in the back. The plot itself is quite predictable here. There are no surprises or twists which works well for this sort of novel. It is more driven by the characters and this portrayal of the society of this Orthodox Jewish community. The hardships of conversion and finding acceptance feel accurately portrayed. It's an interesting book and one that I think could be a real hit with book clubs that are looking for more diversity in their reading. This novel could be a great starting point or addition for that! Leah's conversion allows for a lot of detail into the rules and ramifications for breaking those rules to fit well into the narrative.

While this is a great character-driven novel, I wish that the plot had been perhaps a little more complex... or that the epilogue had been set farther into the future. The characters are all more completely built and sympathetic, but I just wish that there had been more surprises... But, it's definitely a good read!

Very often lately I've noticed that I quibble more with how a book its treated (presented, described, labeled and marketed) by its publisher than with the book itself. An Unorthodox Match is a case in point.

It's a charming, simple, sweet, life-affirming story that, while it depicts some of the pettiest aspects of human nature, also highlights some of the most noble. I'd guess that 99% of the text is about modesty and wholesomeness, yet the book cover features a seductive-looking female in a revealing red dress with a large, peek-a-boo tattoo on her back. And the 1% that might refer to someone like the cover girl isn't about the main character at all! Grrrrr.

I wasn't offended by the cover art, it was just so incongruent with the story.

The title suggests two things (conservative religion and culture clash) and the book delivers. I'm not Jewish, but An Unorthodox Match called up many, many memories of my upbringing in a fundamentalist (Christian) faith.

I liked the book a lot. Leah is a thoroughly modern woman of Jewish heritage who begins to explore, and then to practice, Orthodox Judaism. Yaakov is a young widower with five children who lives for the Torah. The minutiae of "frum" (piously observant) life was fascinating. Leah and Yakov are fully developed, sympathetic characters.

It's not a perfect book. I usually avoid romances, and books with a lot of foreign terms scattered liberally through the text (in this case, it was Yiddish, of course). But neither of those things griped me, because it's more than a romance, and the Yiddish was integral to the story.

Thanks to St. Martin's Press and NetGalley for an advance reader's copy.

A sexy thriller, that sizzles even after its complete! Thank you for allowing me this ARC netgalley and Naomi Ragen! Everyone needs this book!

An <em>Unorthodox Match</em> is set in the ultra-orthodox community of Boro Park, Brooklyn, and is told through the points of view of several characters. Leah (Lola) is Jewish by birth, but was raised by a mother who wants nothing to do with the religion of her own upbringing. Leah only discovers faith and deeper meaning as a college student, and eventually pursues religious studies in her path back to observant, orthodox Judaism. Yaakov, a widower with five children mourning for his late wife, is a prize sought after by a slew of matchmakers, all looking to make a marriage involving his prestigious family. Yaakov's mother-in-law Fruma Esther wants what's best for Yaakov and his children, but not at the risk of their family's reputation. And getting involved with someone newly returned to religion is a sure way to get gossip flowing, possibly endangering the future standing of the next generation.

This book is a deep dive into the community and its social constructs, and does a good job of explaining why a modern, educated woman might turn to a world that outsiders view as repressive and misogynistic. Leah is an interesting character, and the author does a good job at letting us see why Leah might find a fresh meaning and purpose through religion, faith, and tradition.

Love in an Orthodox Jewish Community

Leah, formerly Lola, has had a difficult life. She’s only thirty-four, but her fiance died tragically, and she has found no one else to give her the secure home life and children she craves. In her search for meaning, she joins an Orthodox Jewish community in Boro Park, Brooklyn. Her mother, an atheist, finds the idea ridicules. Leah has a business degree, a good job, and good prospects, but Leah can’t let her mother run her life.

Yaakov Lehman, a widowed Talmudic scholar, is trying to raise his children, but they and he are not coping well. Leah volunteers to help the family and soon finds herself enjoying the children. Predictably, she and Yaakov find they have feelings for each other, but it’s not as simple as it seems.

This is a sensitively told story of people looking for meaning amid the problems of daily life: family dysfunction, economic reverses, bigotry, and hypocrisy. The setting in an Orthodox Jewish community will not be familiar to many people, but the problems facing the people are the same in many other places.

The characters are engaging. I enjoyed Leah, but she almost seemed to be too good to be true when she took on the problems of Yaakov’s family. The children are an excellent addition to the story. Seeing the reactions of children tells a lot about what is happening under the surface of relationships.

Although the plot is relatively predictable, the book is well worth reading for the character development.

I received this book from St. Martin’s Press for this review.

Naomi Ragen's new novel, An Unorthodox Match, is thought provoking and entertaining. Ragen often tackles difficult topics and this plot is no different. Leah Howard is Jewish, but raised with very little religion. She finds herself at a low point in her life and turns to religion. She longs for the closeness of the Orthodox community and the structure of their lifestyle. Leah moves to Brooklyn where she lives with an Orthodox family and takes religious classes. She has a successful marketing business but sets aside time to help others. This leads her to Yaakov, a widower with three children at home. Leah soon brings calm to the chaotic home and lifts the spirits of the two youngest children. Yaakov's fifteen year old daughter resents Leah for taking over her duties, even though she was unable to fulfill them. There is an attraction between Leah and Yaakov, but is the formerly secular Leah good enough for someone with Yaakov's pedigree? What will people think? Ragen bravely confronts this issue as well as inviting the reader in for a realistic look into a very private community. An Unorthodox Match is another fantastic Naomi Ragen novel.

I really enjoyed reading this book about Orthodox Judaism. I learned a lot and it was a humorous read. I loved the interaction that the main characters had with the matchmaker, and some of their dates. It was interesting to see each dealing with their emotions and each other. I also learned quite a bit about Boro Park and the Orthodox Jewish community. This is a new author for me, but I am looking forward to reading more of her books.
Thank you to the publisher and Net Galley for the free ARC. All opinions are my own.

After tragedy, Leah (formerly Lola) has turned to religion for guidance and consolation in her life. Thus, we follow her as Leah goes through assimilation into a new community, the ultra-orthodox enclave of Boro Park, Brooklyn, she has joined. Early on, she volunteers to help out Yaakov Lehman, a recent widower with five children. Tidying up his house and helping care for the small children, Leah learns a lot about Yaakov, whom she has never met. When they finally do meet, though it is obvious, they do not accept their instant connection. How could they ever come together? Yaakov is serious-minded and from a well-respected family in the community, while Leah is a recent convert, who has spent her life doing and involved in many of the things the community frowns upon and does not accept. It was not too difficult figuring out where this story was headed, but it was interesting to see just how it got there.

Prior to this book, I knew very little about ultra-orthodox communities, and this book provided a great introduction. The author definitely knows the community, its culture, beliefs, demographics and daily routines, or she has done a great deal of research. I was fascinated by her descriptions of daily life within the community as well as of the community members. As I said, I was unfamiliar with ultra-orthodox communities and life, but I now have a much better understand of what they are like, largely due to the author’s vivid portrayals and insights throughout. In addition, watching the interaction and growing relationship between the two main characters was fascinating. Yes, as I said, I had figured out how it would end early on but watching how it got there was enough to hold my interest. Their story definitely rings true. So many of us are searching for the true meaning of and direction in our life, as was Leah. Others, like Yaakov, are also seeking help coping with tragedy that has left lives in shambles. Both were characters anyone could recognize and/or relate to. Finally, this book has provided me a great way to look into this type community, with all its strengths and weaknesses, as well as to see a true romance blossom, grow and flourish. I received this from NetGalley to read and review.

An interesting take on the romance genre that was different from anything I had previously read. Lola had everything lined up and a few things sent her life into a tailspin and she decides to take a big turn and trying something new and see if it is the right place for her. She decides to dive deep into the religion that her mother abandoned as a child and finds a community that really envelopes her.

At the same time that Lola is changing her life, Jacob is trying to survive as a widower with a lot of small children who are having a real hard time with the death of their mother. Lola enters their life at the right moment and changes their lives forever.

With all romance stories, the ending is a given, but the journey is the reason for the story. Of course in this book, I completely knew where we were going to end, but had no clue how it was going to get there. I liked the uniqueness of this book and how it felt so far from anything I had read before. I weirdly loved learning about orthodox religions and how hard it is to live in a country that is so far different from the beliefs that you want to live.

I would read another one by this author, but this would be one of those types of books that I would only read a few each year.

What a terrific and informative novel this is! Leah and Yaakov are both grieving the loss of a loved one. Leah, whose mother turned away from Judaism and who after tragedy found a way forward by recovering her heritage to become orthodox, is living in Boro Park. Yaakov's much loved wife and mother of his five children died and he's barely keeping his head above water; in fact, he isn't fully aware of how bad things are at home. Leah is sent as a volunteer to Yaakov's home to help with the three little ones still living there. Yaakov, desperate for money and for a new partner, begins the matchmaking process. But then, these two find each other- and the course of love is not straight. I'm a huge fan of Ragen because each of her novels explores a different aspect of Jewish life and in this case it's the issue of the Baal teshuva, those who, like Leah, leave the secular life to become religious. Fascinating. These characters- and others like Yaakov's mother in law and Leah's friends- are wonderful. My only quibble is with the cover which misrepresents, I think, Leah, her dress, and, especially, her tattoo, which was quite small and on her hand, not her back. Regardless, thanks to the publisher for the ARC. This is a great and very rewarding read.