The Debt of Tamar

Book excerpt: "Four hundred years before Oskar Schindler there was Suleiman the Magnificent, an Ottoman sultan who rescued thousands of Jews from the Inquisition... In 1544, as Inquisition fires rage in Portugal, young José Mendez discovers he's Jewish--and that his parents died for their faith. With the help of the Ottoman sultan, he escapes and makes a new life in Istanbul, where he digs deeper into his Jewish roots. But when his own daughter secretly falls in love with the sultan's Muslim grandson, José finds himself in a life-changing dilemma, one that will shape generations to come. In 2002, Selim Osman, the last living descendant of the Ottoman sultanate, flees Istanbul for New York. In a twist of fate he meets Hannah, the daughter of a Holocaust survivor. Unaware the connection they share goes back centuries, Hannah and Selim feel an immediate pull to one another. But when something from Selim's past comes to light, the act that bound two families ages ago ripples into the future, threatening to tear them apart."--