{"id":21568,"date":"2021-11-22T05:00:00","date_gmt":"2021-11-22T13:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dailywaffle.com\/stage1\/?p=21568"},"modified":"2021-11-23T08:10:14","modified_gmt":"2021-11-23T16:10:14","slug":"excerpt-the-matzah-ball-by-jean-meltzer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dailywaffle.com\/stage1\/excerpt-the-matzah-ball-by-jean-meltzer\/","title":{"rendered":"EXCERPT: The Matzah Ball by Jean Meltzer"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

WIth holiday celebrations starting early this year, you’re probably already thinking about cozying up with a good book and a cup of hot cocoa or a hot toddy. Although this time of year is dominated by Christmas romances, I’m looking forward to a Hanukkah celebration with The Matzah Ball by Jean Meltzer<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Our main character Rachel has her own secret (and conflicted feelings?!) about Hanukkah and Christmas, too. She’s been a secret Christmas romance novelist for a decade when her publisher decides they need a Hanukkah romance. But while she doesn’t see the same magic in Hanukkah, she’s determined to deliver. Throw in the guy who pulled a prank at camp that she’s still not over 18 years later, and ooh, do we have enemies-to-lovers on our hands?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Check out the excerpt and pick up a copy of The Matzah Ball by Jean Meltzer, on shelves now. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Get The Matzah Ball at The Ripped Bodice<\/a> | Bookshop.org |<\/a> IndieBound<\/a> | Amazon<\/a> | Apple Books<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

This Post Includes Affiliate Links that Kick us a Small Commission at No Cost to You If you Use them to Shop<\/em>. If this post was useful or helped you discover a new book, please use them to support my work – thanks!<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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EXCERPT:<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

She just needed one more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rachel Rubenstein-Goldblatt stared at the collection of miniature Christmas figurines spread across her desk. She owned 236 of the smiling porcelain Santas from the world-famous Holiday Dreams Collection. When her best friend, Mickey, arrived, she would complete that collection with the addition of the coveted Margaritaville Santa.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Oh, the Margaritaville Santa. <\/em>How she had dreamed of the day when that tiny porcelain Santa, in a Hawaiian shirt and wear-ing Ray-Ban sunglasses, would sit atop her prized collection.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rachel had scoured eBay for the tiny limited-edition figurine, set up price alerts and left frantic (somewhat drunken) posts at three in the morning on collector blogs. Now, after six years, five months and seven days of hunting, the Margaritaville Santa would finally be hers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The anxiety was killing her.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rachel glanced out the window of her apartment. It was snowing outside. Gentle flakes fell down onto Broadway and made New York City feel magical. She was wondering when Mickey would actually get here when there was a knock at the door.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cFinally!\u201d Rachel said. Excitement bubbled up inside her as she raced to the front door, throwing it open. And then, disappointment. Her mother stood in the threshold.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI was in the neighborhood,\u201d she said, a perfectly innocent smile spread across her two round cheeks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Her mother was always <\/em>in the neighborhood.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was one of the downsides of living on the Upper West Side while her mother, a top New York fertility specialist, worked out of Columbia Hospital just ten blocks away.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rachel had to think quickly. She loved her mother, and was even willing to entertain her completely intrusive and unannounced visits, but the door to her home office was still open.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMickey\u2019s about to stop by,\u201d Rachel warned.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI won\u2019t be but a minute,\u201d her mother said, lifting up a plastic bag from Ruby\u2019s Smoked Fish Shop as a peace offering. \u201cI brought you some dinner.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dr. Rubenstein pushed her way inside, letting her fingers graze the mezuzah on Rachel\u2019s doorpost before entering. Making her way straight to the refrigerator, she began unloading \u201cdinner.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There was a large vat of chopped liver, two loaves of pumpernickel bread, three different types of rugalach. Dr. Rubenstein believed in feeding the people you love, and the love she had for her daughter was likely to end in heart disease.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHow are you feeling?\u201d her mother inquired.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cFine,\u201d Rachel said, using the opportunity to close her office door.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dr. Rubenstein looked up from the refrigerator. Her eyes rolled from Rachel\u2019s hair, matted and clumped, down to her wrinkled pink pajamas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She frowned. \u201cYou look pale.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI am pale,\u201d Rachel reminded her.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cRachel,\u201d her mother said pointedly, \u201cyou need to take your myalgic encephalomyelitis seriously.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rachel rolled her eyes. Outside, the gentle snow was gathering into a full-blown storm.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dr. Rubenstein was probably one of the few people who called Rachel\u2019s disease by its medical term, the name research scientists and experts preferred, describing the complex multisystem disease that affected her neurological, immune, autonomic and metabolic systems. Most everyone else in the world knew it by the simple and distasteful moniker chronic fatigue syndrome.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Which was, quite possibly, the most trivializing name for a disease in the entire world. The equivalent of calling Alzheimer\u2019s \u201cSenior Moment Syndrome.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It did not begin to remotely describe the crushing fatigue, migraines, brain fog or weirdo pains that Rachel lived with daily. It certainly did not describe the 25 percent of patients who found themselves bed-bound or homebound\u2014existing on feeding tubes, unable to leave dark rooms for years\u2014or the 75 percent of patients who could no longer work full-time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For now, however, Rachel was one of the lucky ones. She had managed to graduate college with a degree in creative writing and, over the last decade, build a career working from home.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cEma,\u201d Rachel said, growing frustrated. \u201cMy body, my choice.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBut\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cChange the topic.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dr. Rubenstein pressed her lips together and swallowed the words on her tongue. It was not an easy feat for the woman. \u201cAnd how\u2019s work?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cGood.\u201d Rachel shrugged, returning to the couch. \u201cNoth-ing that interesting to report.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAnd the freelance work you\u2019re doing\u2014\u201d her mother craned her neck to peep around her apartment \u201c\u2014it\u2019s keeping you busy?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBusy enough.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dr. Rubenstein raised one eyebrow in her daughter\u2019s direction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rachel knew what her mother was really <\/em>asking. How can you afford a two-bedroom apartment on the Upper West Side simply by doing freelance editorial work? <\/em>But Dr. Rubenstein had learned an important halachic lesson from her husband, Rabbi Aaron Goldblatt, early on in their marriage; you don\u2019t ask questions you don\u2019t really want the answers to.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For all Rachel knew, her mother believed her to be a web-cam girl. Or a high-class prostitute. Or the mistress of some dashingly handsome Arabian prince. All of which, Rachel was certain, would be preferable to what she actually did for a living.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cEma,\u201d Rachel said, steering the conversation away from her career. \u201cWhat is it you\u2019re really here for?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhy do you always think I have an ulterior motive, Rachel?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBecause I know you.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAll right!\u201d Dr. Rubenstein threw her hands up into the air. \u201cYou caught me. I do have an ulterior motive.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBaruch Hashem<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNow, it\u2019s nothing bad, I promise,\u201d her mother said, taking a seat on her couch. \u201cI simply wanted to see if you were available for Shabbat dinner this Friday?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There it was. The real reason for her mother\u2019s visit. Shab-bat at Rabbi Goldblatt\u2019s house was not just a weekly religious occurrence, it was a chance for Dr. Rubenstein to kidnap her daughter for twenty-five hours straight and force her to meet single Jewish men.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Over the years, there had been all sorts of horrible setups. There was the luxury auto dealer who used his sleeve as a napkin during dinner. The rabbinical student who spent an entire Saturday afternoon debating aloud with only <\/em>her father over what to do when an unkosher meatball falls into a pot of kosher meatballs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And then, there was her favorite blind date setup of them all. Dovi, the Israeli mountain climber, who had traveled the world in his perfectly healthy and functioning body, before telling Rachel that he didn\u2019t think chronic fatigue syndrome was a real <\/em>disease.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Chas v\u2019chalilah.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rachel had no intention of spending another Friday night, and Saturday afternoon, entertaining her mother\u2019s idea of a dreamboat. Especially not when that dreamboat had the word Titanic <\/em>embroidered across the bottom of their knitted kippah.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNo,\u201d Rachel said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cRachel!\u201d her mother pleaded. \u201cJust hear me out.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019m too busy, Ema.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBut you haven\u2019t been home in ages!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou live in Long Island,\u201d Rachel shot back. \u201cI see you and Daddy all the time.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Her mother could not argue with this factoid.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cJacob Greenberg will be coming,\u201d her mother finally said. Rachel nearly choked on her tongue. \u201cWhat?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou remember Jacob Greenberg?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The question sounded so innocent on the surface. Jacob Greenberg. <\/em>How could Rachel forget the name? The duo had spent one summer together at Camp Ahava in the Berkshires before the seventh grade.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cJacob Greenberg?\u201d Rachel spit back. \u201cThe psychopath who spent an entire summer pulling my hair and pushing me into the lake?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI recall you two getting along quite well at one point.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHe set me up in front of everyone, Mom. He turned my first kiss into a giant Camp Ahava prank!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHe was twelve!\u201d Dr. Rubenstein was on her feet now. \u201cTwelve, Rachel. You can\u2019t hold a grown man accountable for something he did as a child. For heaven\u2019s sake\u2026 The boy hadn\u2019t even had his bar mitzvah.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rachel could feel the red rising in her cheeks. A wellspring of complicated emotions rose up inside her. Hate and love. Confusion and excitement. Just hearing his name again after all these years brought Rachel smack-dab back to her ado-lescence. And sitting there beside all those terrible memories of him humiliating her were the good ones. Rachel couldn\u2019t help herself. She drifted back to that summer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The way it felt to hold his hand in secret. The realization that there was more to their relationship than just dumb pranks and dead bugs left in siddurs. Jacob had gotten Rachel to open up. She had trusted him. Showed him a side of herself reserved for a select few. Aside from Mickey, she had never been so honest with anybody in her entire life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dr. Rubenstein dismissed her daughter\u2019s concerns with a small wave of the hand. \u201cIt was eighteen years ago. Don\u2019t you think you\u2019re being a tad ridiculous?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMe?\u201d Rachel scoffed. \u201cYou\u2019re the one who\u2019s hosting my summer camp archenemy for Shabbat.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHe\u2019s in town from Paris for some big event he\u2019s throwing. What would you have me do\u2014not invite him?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhile you\u2019re at it, don\u2019t forget to invite Dana Shoshanski. She made me cry every day in third grade. In fact, let me get you a list of all the people who made fun of me for being Rachel Rubenstein-Goldblatt <\/em>growing up. I want to make sure you don\u2019t miss anybody.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Her mother did not blink. \u201cI\u2019m sorry it was hard for you\u2026being our daughter.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Just like that, her mother had twisted all those feelings back around on her.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rachel bit back her words, looking up to the ceiling. She loved her parents more than anything in the world. They had been there for her at every stage of her life, doting and won-derful. Still, the Rubenstein-Goldblatt name came with pres-sures. They were pressures that, even as an adult, still managed to follow her.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A knock at the door drew their attention away.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cLet me get that for you,\u201d Dr. Rubenstein said sweetly, ris-ing from the couch.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHo, ho, ho-oooooooh\u2026 .\u201d Mickey said, standing at the door, his smile fading into panic. He was holding a medium-sized red gift bag in the air. He glanced at Rachel, who signaled the immediate danger by running one finger across her throat. Quickly Mickey hid the bag behind his back.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cDr. Rubenstein!\u201d he said, his eyes wide. \u201cI didn\u2019t expect to see you here.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNot to worry, Mickey,\u201d Dr. Rubenstein said, adjusting her scarf. \u201cI was just getting ready to leave.\u201d She turned back to her daughter one last time. \u201cJust think about coming to din-ner, okay? Daddy and I won\u2019t be around forever, and there may come a time in your life when you miss spending Shab-bat at your parents\u2019 house.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mickey waited for the door to shut firmly behind him and the elevator at the end of the hall to ding before turning to his best friend. \u201cWhoa,\u201d he said. \u201cThat woman is a pro when it comes to Jewish guilt.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cTell me about it,\u201d Rachel said, collapsing on the couch.\u201c So what did our fine rebbetzin want this evening?\u201d Mickey asked, taking his boots and jacket off at the front door.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou\u2019ll never believe it if I tell you.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To everyone that knew them, it seemed that Mickey and Rachel had been bashert, soul mates, since time immemorial, having met at Camp Ahava when they were eight years old.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since Rachel couldn\u2019t be sure what drew the pair together, she assumed it had something to do with how other people at their camp had treated them. Mikael, the adopted son of a powerhouse lesbian couple from Manhattan, was Black. And Rachel, as everyone who met her cared to remind her, was the daughter of Rabbi Aaron Goldblatt. The <\/em>Rabbi Aaron Goldblatt.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Whether they liked it or not, when Mickey and Rachel walked into a room, people noticed them. People watched them. This shared experience formed the basis of their comradery and, later, extended far beyond Jewish summer camp.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cShe wanted to set me up with Jacob Greenberg,\u201d Rachel said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mickey finished pulling off his boots. \u201cJacob Greenberg? From Camp Ahava?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe one and only.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWow,\u201d Mickey said, coming over to sit beside Rachel. \u201cThat\u2019s a name I haven\u2019t heard in forever. Didn\u2019t he give you mono?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rachel squeezed her eyes shut. She did not want to think about that first kiss with Jacob Greenberg. \u201cCan we seriously not talk about this right now? I\u2019ve waited seven long years for this moment, Mickey\u2026and just like some of the other most important moments of my life, Jacob Greenberg is ruining it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou\u2019re right,\u201d Mickey said, laying the red bag on the coffee table between them. \u201cAnd I have just the thing to take your mind off He Who Shall Not Be Named.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This was it. The moment she had waited for. With eager fingers, Rachel reached into the bag, pulled out the tiny figurine and gently removed the plastic bubble wrapping that protected it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was even better than she had imagined.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Excerpted from The Matzah Ball by Jean Meltzer, Copyright \u00a9 2021 by Jean Meltzer. Published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

# # #<\/p>

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WIth holiday celebrations starting early this year, you’re probably already thinking about cozying up with a good book and a cup of hot cocoa or a hot toddy. Although this time of year is dominated by Christmas romances, I’m looking forward to a Hanukkah celebration with The Matzah Ball by Jean Meltzer. 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