The Third Daughter: A Novel

Written by:
Talia Carner
Narrated by:
Saskia Maarleveld

Unabridged Audiobook

Ratings
Book
12
Narrator
3
Release Date
September 2019
Duration
10 hours 37 minutes
Summary
From the author of Jerusalem Maiden comes a remarkable story, inspired by little-known true events, about the thousands of young Jewish women who were trafficked into prostitution at the turn of the 20th century, and whose subjugation helped build Buenos Aires.

The turn of the 20th century finds fourteen-year-old Batya in the Russian countryside, fleeing   with her family endless pogroms. Desperate, her father leaps at the opportunity to marry Batya to a worldly, wealthy stranger who can guarantee his daughter an easy life and passage to America.

Feeling like a princess in a fairytale, Batya leaves her old life behind as she is whisked away to a new world. But soon she discovers that she’s entered a waking nightmare. Her new “husband” does indeed bring her to America: Buenos Aires, a vibrant, growing city in which prostitution is not only legal but deeply embedded in the culture. And now Batya is one of thousands of women tricked and sold into a brothel.

As the years pass, Batya forms deep bonds with her “sisters” in the house as well as some men who are both kind and cruel. Through it all, she holds onto one dream: to bring her family to America, where they will be safe from the anti-Semitism that plagues Russia. Just as Batya is becoming a known tango dancer,  she gets an unexpected but dangerous opportunity—to help bring down the criminal network that has enslaved so many young women and has been instrumental in developing Buenos Aires into   a major metropolis.

A powerful story of finding courage in the face of danger, and hope in the face of despair, The Third Daughter brings to life a dark period of Jewish history and gives a voice to victims whose truth deserves to finally be told.
Reviews
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Elise S.

This is a great story, well-told. If it was a "real" book, I would call it a page-turner. The writer certainly keeps the reader's attention and makes you want to keep reading to find out what happens next. That said, I have some quibbles with some sloppy historical references, which is why I gave it 4 stars instead of 5 stars. For example, when Moskowitz is "wooing" Batya, he laments about how American women are spoiled. In the 1880's, he would have talked about American GIRLS, not American WOMEN. He is talking to a 14-year-old! When Batya gets sight of the busy port in Buenos Aires, she sees cranes. Really? in the 1880's? Work in the ports at that time would have been done by human laborers and/or mules or horses. Cranes would not be ubiquitous in a port until many decades later. The narrator does a good job of using different voices for different characters. However, some of the accents sound more like an Irish brogue than an Eastern European voice.

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