Name: Incantation
ISBN: 0316010197

Alice Hoffman

During the Spanish Inquisition, sixteen-year-old Estrella, brought up a Catholic, discovers her family's true Jewish identity, and when their secret is betrayed by Estrella's best friend, the consequences are tragic.

Incantation

Narah Quinn

A journey of loss and rebirth with a startling premise inspired by historical fact. 
Estrella is a Marrano: one of the Spanish Jews living double lives when those who refused conversion risked everything. Estrella's discovery that her family secretly practices the ancient way of wisdom known as kabbalah leads her to her true self and true love-but also to a devastating confrontation with unimaginable evil, unleashed by the betrayal of a friend. 
With themes of faith, friendship, and persecution, Alice Hoffman's tragic and beautiful novel resonates profoundly in our times. 

This book was beautiful, and tragic, and for quite a slim book it took me just over a week as at points I had to just put it down, and reflect, and feel, boy does it make you feel. 
Estrella and her best friend Catalina have been inseparable since they were babes, but almost as soon as this book begins, with a book burning and the arrest of an old man, Estrella starts to see that Catalina is not the girl she thought she knew. 
There is this incredible quality about this book that feels like its all happening very quickly, but it also feels like its moving at a slow steady pace, ensuring that we don't miss anything as Estrella learns her family's secret, falls in love and learns about her true faith. 
I really loved this, but it was heart wrenching and so deep with its messages of love, trust, knowing who to trust and the wonders of the world around us and the way to live in harmony with it and yourself. 

I think one of my favourite quotes from it was this:
"My mother taught me so much as we walked through the hills and then as we talked late at night. But most important of all, she explained that it was alright to say No. I disagree. That was a gift. I understood it was power. The power to think my own thoughts. The power to believe in myself."

I recommend this book on the grounds of potentially understanding a dark time in our history, I especially think its really relevant today with the lessening tolerance we see every day in the news, and take from it that we absolutely cannot afford to go backwards.