The Hidden Palace

A Novel of the Golem and the Jinni

By: Helene Wecker

Narrated by: George Guidall

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?

Beautiful writing. Loved this story.

The story picks up from book one and expands and grows. It's a pleasure to read a book that is written so well. Imaginative, twisty, powerful, delicate . . . I had a great time listening to this.

My Second Wish Granted

A review shouldn’t just gush, so I’ll try to control myself. Here are the things I enjoyed about Helene Wecker’s second book:
1. The relationship between Golem & Jinni is so complex. It made me laugh at times as it is the most HUMAN and realistic love story I’ve ever read.
2. The rich interweaving of cultures, history, myth and settings. Wecker creates a complete world in lush detail. It is easily accessible unlike other created worlds I’ve read, a mark of her exceptional storytelling.
3. The slow progression of story. I got impatient mid-way, but the pace is deliberate. We need to see how all the characters change over time, how they create the crucible that brings them to Part 3. If you get irritated, try to relax. The payoff is worth it.
4. George Guidall’s artistry as a performer. I trust him completely, so I’m never yanked out of the story by false notes. He gives voice to all the complexities of character, brings the perfect touch of humor or pathos. He can load one word with tears.
5. The story isn’t over. I look forward to a third wish granted in the next installment.

Geometrically progressed far above mature Fantasy

This is Magical Realism in the rich vein founded by authors like Jorge Luis Borges, Franz Kafka, and Gabriel Garcia Marquez.

The Hidden Palace is hardly a thing that can even be talked about accurately, so I am given to support hypotheses about what an aural experience uniquely adds to the experiential dimensions of the best storytelling there is.

That makes this storytelling a thing to be experienced for what it is, in itself, in all of its perspicacious acuity of focus in specific word choices, relative to not only times and places in cultural and social histories, but also in its thematic allusions to human language constructs themselves.

Helene Wecker's work refreshes my belief in authentic, personal and collective, intellectual, emotional, aesthetic, social, and pleasurable potentials of language arts. As the poet R.M. Rilke said of such works of humanity, ". . . You built a temple, deep inside their hearing."

Part 2 of a wonderful fantasy for grownups

Performed magnificently, this sequel to the Golem and the Jinni was as captivating as its predecessor. A highly intelligent and mesmerizing tale,.

Enjoyed it just as much as the first

Loved it. Wasn't sure how they were going to bring the story to a close, and how they did it was nice. I enjoy the narrator