Ruta Massa is The Posthumous Wife

The plague year of 1666 is prophesied to be the End of Days. An Anatolian Jew named Shabbetai Zevi declares himself the Messiah. Europe’s great naval powers arm for war. Then in September London burns.

But one young woman in Amsterdam’s Jewish Quarter has no time to worry about the End of the World. Her world is already destroyed. Unless she can conceal her pregnancy and prove to a rabbinical bet din that her husband is dead, she will forever be an agunah (an abandoned wife), unable to remarry, unable to do anything without her domineering brother-in-law Max’s permission.

The Posthumous Wife is the story of Ruta Massa, a Portuguese Jewish bride and her traumatic encounter with the traditional authority of her Judeo-Christian ancestors. At first Ruta struggles with problems of faith: raised in Portugal as a Catholic convert, she’s thrust into an arranged marriage after her family flees the Inquisition. Then she finds that sectarianism is the least of her problems. As soon as she finds the proof of her husband’s death, Max asserts his levir’s right to marry her. But owning Ruta body and soul isn’t all Max wants. He wants to destroy the entire Dutch Jewish community. Ruta’s only recourse is to expose Max as a Catholic king’s secret agent.