The Hidden Palace: A Novel of the Golem and the Jinni (The Golem and the Jinni, #2)

by Helene Wecker

"Richly nuanced and beautiful. . . . An immersive and magical tale of loneliness, love, and finding hope.” (Buzzfeed)

“A layered novel of many complex characters…To keep their worlds safe, Chava and Ahmad must access both their greatest supernatural powers and their deepest human impulses.” (Historical Novels Review)

In this enthralling historical epic, set in New York City and the Middle East in the years leading to World War I— the long-awaited follow-up to the acclaimed New York Times bestseller The Golem and the Jinni—Helene Wecker revisits her beloved characters Chava and Ahmad as they confront unexpected new challenges in a rapidly changing human world.

Chava is a golem, a woman made of clay, who can hear the thoughts and longings of those around her and feels compelled by her nature to help them. Ahmad is a jinni, a restless creature of fire, once free to roam the desert but now imprisoned in the shape of a man. Fearing they’ll be exposed as monsters, these magical beings hide their true selves and try to pass as human—just two more immigrants in the bustling world of 1900s Manhattan. Brought together under calamitous circumstances, their lives are now entwined—but they’re not yet certain of what they mean to each other.

Both Chava and Ahmad have changed the lives of the people around them. Park Avenue heiress Sophia Winston, whose brief encounter with Ahmad left her with a strange illness that makes her shiver with cold, travels to the Middle East to seek a cure. There she meets Dima, a tempestuous female jinni who’s been banished from her tribe. Back in New York, in a tenement on the Lower East Side, a little girl named Kreindel helps her rabbi father build a golem they name Yossele—not knowing that she’s about to be sent to an orphanage uptown, where the hulking Yossele will become her only friend and protector.

Spanning the tumultuous years from the turn of the twentieth century to the beginning of World War I, The Hidden Palace follows these lives and others as they collide and interleave. Can Chava and Ahmad find their places in the human world while remaining true to each other? Or will their opposing natures and desires eventually tear them apart—especially once they encounter, thrillingly, other beings like themselves?

• ISBN10: 0062468715
• ISBN13: 9780062468710
• Publish Date: 22 July 2021 (first published 8 June 2021)
• Publish Status: Active
• Out of Print: 26 February 2024
• Publish Country: US
• Imprint: Harper
• Format: Hardcover (Deckle Edge)
• Pages: 480
• Language: English

Reviews

[Metaphorosis Reviews]

4 stars, Metaphorosis Reviews

Summary
A jinni bound in iron and a sophisticated golem, able to pass as human and living in the human world in New York City have a long, but somewhat troubled friendship. It's complicated by another, unbound jinni and another, cruder golem who come into their lives and those of their acquaintances.

Review
I didn’t read the first volume in this series, The Golem and the Jinni. Happily, that wasn’t a barrier. Wecker does an excellent job of providing the backstory smoothly, woven into the newer narrative. That narrative seemingly takes up where the earlier book left off, following the two principals, Chava (the golem) and Ahmad (the jinni) as they try to settle into a human-like existence despite their essential non-humanity.

The prose is smooth, the characters engaging and interesting; there’s a rich set of decently-developed supporting characters. Only the setting lacked much interest for me; I don’t much care for New York and I don’t find the early 1900s more interesting than any other time. Wecker has clearly done her research well, though, and she fits it all together in a way that makes the setting just that – setting and scenery, not really an obtrusive presence in the story (except for some awkward attempts to fit in real world historical events). I read the book through with interest, never loth to pick it up and go further, though equally never really reluctant to put it down at the end of a chapter.

While there’s no question the book is well written, I found myself oddly ambivalent about it as a whole. I don’t plan, for example, to pick up the earlier volume. Why is that? I’m not really sure, frankly. Something about it all left me a bit cold; while the characters are well developed, I found I didn’t empathize with them as much as I’d have liked. And the basic premise – golem meets jinni in the last century – didn’t really grab me. Some of the character conflicts could have used more foundation. While the protagonists are supernatural, they act as humans in most ways, and some of their essentially-human conflicts felt a bit rushed. The two main extraneous characters – the new jinni and new golem – don’t get as much time as they should have, and are largely scenery and plot points rather than true characters.

In short – this was a pleasant read, and I’d be happy to read other stories by the author, but don’t feel compelled to read more of this one.

I received this book for free in exchange for an honest review.