“…a moving generational biography and wonderful historical romantic thriller. There are narrow escapes, chilling and tragic losses. The sweeping story and gorgeous locations would make a powerful mini-series.” Mark W. Hammond, Emmy winner
Ledicia’s Key, Yvette Nachmias-Baeu’s fourth book, is a genealogical puzzle that pieces clues and follows generations of a family from the Spanish Inquisition to present-day New England. The author reaches backwards and forwards through history to highlight descendants from Generals to artists, from nobility to shopkeepers. Here is a symphony of diverse humanity, of love and war, and not always harmonious – played out in the sharps and flats of personal triumphs and political tragedies.
Encounter ancestors brutally forced from their homeland during the Spanish Inquisition; a great grandfather whose bravery prevented a city from being enveloped in flames; an uncle summoned by a king to negotiate Bulgarian neutrality during a war; and a family who escaped the ravages of history’s madman to flee Nazi genocide as refugees seeking safety in Argentina – with all her vignettes wrapped and culminating in a modern-day love story.
Always as we follow the trail of the family, Baeu reminds us of a compelling if hard-won intergenerational truth: that ancestry is more than a DNA test and more than a family tree. It is the prevention of amnesia and the preservation of hard-won wisdom.
“…I couldn’t stay away from reading this… the story, her writing and imagery, and language.”
Chaiya Zalles, Montessori Teacher Trainer
Yvette Nachmias-Baeu
Writing is Yvette’s final career. She has been a registered psychiatric nurse, an entrepreneur, a professional actress, film-maker, an advertising producer for a large New York Agency, and an administrator at Brown University. Her first book, award-winning, A Reluctant Life, is a memoir about the death of her husband and the process of grief. Clara at Sixty is the fictionalized sequel. Best Friends, her third non-fiction book is the chronicle of a twenty-seven-year friendship, played out in letters. She is the author of several published short stories and poems. While born in Bulgaria, she grew up in Manhattan and now lives in New England at the edge of a waterfall.