The Hidden Palace is Helene Wecker’s long-awaited second novel. Wecker’s debut, The Golem and the Jinni, was published to no small acclaim in 2013. Those of us who remember that novel and its fantastic blending of myths from different traditions in the grounded setting of immigrant communities in late 19 th-century New York have been anticipating The Hidden Palace for quite some time. It lives up to its predecessor. The Hidden Palace spans fifteen years, between 1900 and 1915. It continues to follow the golem Chava Levy and the jinni Ahmad through their lives in, respectively, the Jewish and Syrian immigrant communities in New York. But it also follows Sophia Winston, the young Park Avenue heiress whose brief encounter with Ahmad left her with an affliction that leaves her cold and shivering even in high summer; and the family—the daughter—of Rabbi Altschul. Rabbi Altschul inherits the books of Rabbi Meyer, who had helped Chava, and eventually comes to construct a golem of his own. A golem inherited by his young daughter Kreindel when she’s abruptly orphaned.