RomBkLove

Tamsen Parker's Craving Flight is engrossing and emotional marriage-in-trouble romance within a insular religious community. It is a story about marriage and commitment, of the big and small choices couples must make to a relationship work. The story is set in Orthodox Jewish community. Tziporah is a relative newcomer, an adult convert to practicing Orthodox Judaism after growing up secular.  Parker sensitively explores the many spheres Tziporah must navigate, the lonely place she inhabits, not fully accepted in her chosen community, and an oddity at work and the wider-world, where her colorful hair-scarves isolate her and identify her as someone living outside the mainstream.

Tziporah is a thrirty-seven year old divorced religious studies professor.  Five years previously Tziporah, marriage broke down due to her husband's persistent unfaithfulness and his disgust at her religious and sexual interests.  Her secular WASP husband failed to understands her interest in practicing Orthodox Judaism or her need for BDSM in the bedroom.  Since then Tziporah has slowly and intentionally integrate herself into a Orthodox Community of her choosing, making friends, immersing herself in religious studies, learning the traditions and proper practices.  When her rabbi's wife Bina once again broaches the subject of marriage, Tziporah is finally ready to consider marrying again.

Elan is a butcher and a widower who has grown up Orthodox. They agree to marry out of mutual respect and as act of faith.  They are blessed to discover themselves to be sexually compatible, but those shared pleasures as powerful as they are is not enough to sustain them through periods of mandated abstinence.  Tziporah slowly and somewhat painfully learn that she intentionally build a relationship with her husband that extends beyond their bedroom play.  I was fascinated by all the small moments, where Tziporah must choose whether to say or ask for something from Elan and the intimacy and trust required in that.

Elan and Tziporah's marriage is tested heavily in their first few months, and I loved how beautifully Parker built up the conflicts and then resolved them.  I loved the respect and care with which Parker crafted too deeply religious characters, and how deeply their faith affected their reactions.  I was moved by their love, devotion and choices.

Disclosures: I received a review copy of Craving Flight from the author Tamsen Parker.  Tamsen and I follow each other on twitter and we had a chance to meet at RWA this summer.  I have previously enjoyed her fantastic Personal Geography series.