Count to a Thousand

After two decades in Israel, American born and bred Victoria still struggles to make peace with her relocation to Israel. She constructs a purposefully insular life in a coastal community analogous to the one she'd expected to live back in the United States, replete with conventional activities associated with American suburbia and expat friends that share the same acerbic, oftentimes critical, attitude toward their surroundings. Cracks in this bubble-like existence begin to emerge with her elder child's induction into the Israeli Defense Forces, and a succession of unexpected events ultimately collapse the fragile equilibrium she's managed to attain, crushing any remaining pretense of ambivalence toward her adopted country and forcing her to reassess her allegiances.

How do you make a place your home, especially when everything about it is foreign to you? In Igra's exotic, lovely novel, an American expat in Israel discovers what to keep, what to let go of and how to change. Thrilling and fascinating.

Caroline Leavitt, New York Times Bestselling author of Pictures of You and Cruel Beautiful World

What a moving book! This intimate look at an expat's life in Israel, at what it means to connect to one place while remembering life in another, is revealing and gripping, both. We all wonder where we belong, and here is a beautiful story speaking to those issues of identity and place, with insight and honesty. This is a curl up and read it kind of book that you'll immediately want to share.

Robin Black, author of Life Drawing