Ever try keeping a big secret for a day? A month? A year? A few decades? It takes a lot of energy to keep up your guard. And it’s plain old hard to pull around all that extra mental weight. As a counselor I’m used to being a keeper of secrets, but it’s much more difficult to keep my own, especially when curious bystanders or doting relatives question why I am doing (or not doing) this, that or the other. Believe me, there are good reasons why I cringe at the scent of freshly-cut grass, avoid buying the last package of anything at the store and rarely send photographs to certain relatives and friends.

The Mendelsons look like a typical, happy family, but beneath the surface, everyone is struggling. Zahava is engaged in a toxic competition with her co-worker and is also suffering from secondary infertility. Teenage Shani is desperate to be unique, Nussy has a secret dream that is calling his entire life direction into question, Chaim has a secret job, and Mr. and Mrs. Mendelson are keeping the most shocking secret of all.

In classic Yael Mermelstein fashion, you are invited on a journey of the heart- to explore and illuminate fragile family relationships. But don’t expect me to spill the beans. Read A Fragile Thread for yourself. Hear the Mendelsons’ secrets, think about your own, and just maybe, consider which things really should have been out in the open in the first place.

Guest Blogger: Sara Miriam Gross

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It’s a complicated world out there. So often, we find ourselves having to make difficult decisions, where there’s a very fine line between what’s right and what’s wrong to do. And sometimes that line is actually pretty thick and clear-cut, but one’s yetzer hara gets in the way, hazing things up for the person, so that everything becomes a muddled mass of confusion anyway… Modeling Clay, our latest novel, touches on all this in a very poignant and powerful way.

Modeling Clay is about the tough choices facing a talented and creative teenager–and the repercussions that follow as a result of the path she opts for. Warning: there’s a whole lot of depth, emotion, and painfully honest soul-searching going on in this book, and the reader should expect the onset of tears while engrossed in this gripping novel. But there’s nothing more satisfying than a character finally coming to the right conclusions about his or her life, and so, dear reader, don’t worry about the book leaving you depressed or anything like that; to the contrary, this is a book that, when read in its entirety, has the capacity to make your heart sing! Yes, it’s that powerful a book!

Beautifully written by Rochel Braverman, an emerging name in the world of star writers, this is the book you’ll want to read whenever you get some downtime this Pesach. (Is “downtime” and “Pesach” an oxymoron? Well, even if it is, for a book like this, you better make sure to carve out some sort of slot of  reading time for yourself! Tell your family it’s for their good–so you’ll be more energized and ready to produce more Pesach-dik brownies for them!)

Click here to purchase online.