Ok fine. I've been resisting this all week. 1 like = 1 fact about Bread & Salt.

I'm both terrified this will get no likes and a ton of likes, and I'll embarrassingly run out of facts, but here goes!

So many likes already! (also where do I start? send help)
1. My MC, Rivka, is a prickly AF Jewish witch, who pretends she doesn't care people don't like her while desperately wishing people would.

2. I set this book in an alternate version of my home city Tucson, AZ, because I wanted a) more desert settings in fantasy and b) a setting I could write more easily. I don't relate to cold settings, because I haven't lived in them since I was 9.

3. I drew on the "urban legends" of conversos settling in the SW. Of families who settled along the border who inexplicably have Jewish traditions, like lighting candles or kosher-like animal butchering practices to build an underground Jewish community in the desert.

4. My magic system is based heavily on belief and the idea that there's no universal way to banish a monster. This was my way of undermining the fantasy standard that all spirits can be exorcised with holy water and a cross. It doesn't work in my story.

5. I also wanted to play on the very Jewish folklore tradition of Jewish characters outwitting the supernatural.

There are three basic categories of magic user in my story. Sealers (like Rivka) who banish away spirits and monsters. Summoners, who can summon anything positive or negative, and Seers, who are pretty self-explanatory.

7. I almost had a fourth category for like amulet makers and protection spells and so forth, but I couldn't work it in/find an S name for it, so I lumped it in with Seers.

8. Rivka is not accepted by both the Jewish community and the larger population due to being a witch (there's also a curse element involved). The intracommunity shunning was my way of working through my own struggles with never quite feeling Jewish enough.

9. Rivka's family comes from Eastern Europe, primarily Ukraine. They came over after fleeing a pogrom in 1919. (I literally googled pogroms in Ukraine in 1919 and got like 5, so it's a pick one sort of situation.)

10. The holocaust is mentioned exactly once in a blink and you'll miss it sort of reference, because I really wanted to write a Jewish story that didn't have to do with the holocaust, since there's an overabundance of them already on shelves.

11. Rivka's LI is a Jewish vampire called an estry. Estry have long hair, which they use to fly, and drink blood. They're not undead and also always women. I broke this by making the estry a man (Eliezer) who was cursed by her family for an unforgivable crime 1000 yrs ago.

12. Eliezer has to earn the forgiveness of her family in order to regain his humanity. After thinking her line died out in 1919. Rivka is literally his last hope.

13. The curse that made Eliezer an estry, also makes Rivka's family unlikeable. It also binds them together, something Rivka is less than thrilled about.

14. The Bread & Salt title comes from the fact that when an estry is injured. They can be healed by the person who attacked them by being given bread and salt from their attacker. The bread Rivka gives Eliezer is actually a tortilla.

15. Rivka's community is quite literally underground. There's a system of tunnels beneath the neighborhood the Jewish comm all leading to the synagogue. I based this on a few things. 1. The secret nature of the conversos 2. The tunnel system in Puebla, MX. 3. it's stupid hot here

16. Rivka's BFFs are Zipporah & Leah. Zipporah is a summoner, descended from Sephardic pirates and crypto-Jews who settled in Monterrey MX back when it was first founded by Jews. They fled the Mexican Inquisition by going to Arizona. (btw, read Jewish Pirates of the Carribbean.)

17. Leah is of French descent (her background is a little up in the air as I decide whether or not to pull the trigger on certain things and do more research. Will report back.

18. lots of monsters (maybe more as I edit). Dybbukim, estry, mazzik, even mention of a broxa (which is a Jewish Chupacabra??? that one was new for me) Also mentions of some infamous demon queens.

19. The monsoon plays a big role in this book, and the storms and weather basically bookend the plot events. This was my (very oblique) nod to Westerns where setting is character, but more importantly, the monsoons are both a time of upheaval and renewal.

20. The events of the book take place over the summer leading into Elul and the High Holidays. They also heavily feature themes of atonement (NOT redemption) and forgiveness.

21. When Rivka gets annoyed at Eliezer (which is often) she imagines hacking his hair off (his sources of power) Deliliah style. There are several scissor related threats in the book.

All ten plagues are referenced in my manuscript (some in a more desert version). To date, only like one person has found them without my telling them they exist.

23. Besides English, four other languages show up in my novel. Spanish, Hebrew, Yiddish and Ladino.

24. There's lots of food in my novel! Food is very important both from a cultural perspective and from a setting perspective. I am... a little ashamed to say all of the food is Mexican/Tucson and not Jewish. The one shabbat meal Rivka goes to ends in an argument.

25. Speaking of. Rivka has a very fraught relationship with her old battleaxe of a bubbe. She wants to make sure Rivka's ready for when the cossacks come, and Rivka thinks she already damn well is.

26. My book deals with antisemitism wrapped up in anti-magic sentiments and even utilizes blood l*bel as part of the villain's plan. this was all done very intentionally and with a lot of care, which, this month especially seems particularly relevant.

27. One of my favorite elements of the book was the relationship between Rivka and the Rabbi who develop a mentor/mentee sort of bond that's very healing and affirming for Rivka.

28. Rivka cannot keep a day job to save her life. A mix of the curse making her hard to handle, existing prejudices, & her own prickliness make her a bad fit for customer service. She's much better with monsters, and makes more money with her night job (even if that's underpaid)