The Hidden Palace

“Richly nuanced and beautiful. … Wecker skillfully draws together these disparate lives and characters in an immersive and magical tale of loneliness, love, and finding hope.” — Buzzfeed“In Wecker’s novel, real-life events—the sinking of the Titanic, the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire or the Great War—have an inexorable impact on mortal and supernatural characters alike. From one crisis to the next, a strange and unbreakable alliance develops among many persons and elemental creatures, burgeoning into something even more marvelous… . Fans of The Golem and the Jinni have waited eight years for this sequel. It has been worth the wait.” — BookPage (starred review)“A blend of romance, Mary Shelley-esque horror, and folklore… . Wecker skillfully combines the storylines of Chava the Golem and Ahmad the Jinni and numerous other players, good and evil, in an enchanting tale that pleases on every page.” — Kirkus Reviews (starred review)“Impressive…storytelling à la Dickens…A satisfying, mature sequel to The Golem and the Jinni, continuing the magical story of two immigrant mythological characters from the turn of the 20th century to the outbreak of WWI.” — Publishers Weekly”A measured, gorgeous, character-driven fantasy.” — Tor.com“The Hidden Palace recaptures the assured voice, the delicate magic, the solid historical verisimilitude, and engaging interplay of personalities of The Golem and the Jinni…But Wecker deepens, extends, and culminates all the story arcs, leaving the reader very satisfied.” — Locus“A layered novel of many complex characters, including even richer developments of the golem Chava and the jinni Ahmad…To keep their worlds safe, Chava and Ahmad must access both their greatest supernatural powers and their deepest human impulses.” — Historical Novels Review“A rich literary novel that digs into what it means to be human, by setting up a series of meaningful contrasts from characters who aren’t.“— Polygon Best Fantasy & Science Fiction Novel of the Year“One of the delights of The Hidden Palace is that it traverses many genres as it continues the tale of the unlikely friendship between Chava Levy, a golem, and Ahmad al-Hadid, a jinni…A work of fantasy, historical fiction, modern-day mythology or even romance…A gem deserving a wide readership.” — Hadassah Magazine

Helene Wecker grew up near Chicago, and received her MFA in Creative Writing from Columbia University in New York. Her work has been published in the online magazine Joyland, and she has read from her stories at the KGB Bar in New York and the Barbershop Reading Series in San Francisco. After a dozen years of moving around between both coasts and the Midwest, she now lives near San Francisco with her husband and daughter. The Golem and the Djinni is her first novel.