Shelly Sanders Books In Order

Publication Order of The Rachel Trilogy Books

Publication Order of Standalone Novels

Shelly Sanders is a historical fiction novelist who has her feet planted in both the United States and Canada. The reason for this is that she was brought up in Rolling Meadows, Illinois, even though she was born in Toronto, Ontario. She had just started high school when she returned to Canada and had a very difficult transition. While growing up in the suburbs of Chicago, a few hours from the border with Wisconsin, she had read and been fascinated by Laura Ingalls Wilder’s The Little House on the Prairie books. It was from these novels, which were set in early 1800s Wisconsin, that she was introduced to historical fiction. The author’s insightful yet simple words offered her a very vivid sense of life in the American Midwest. The people who lived in these books were comfortable and cosy in their little log houses with snow drifts all around, and the wind cried as it could not get in to warm itself by the fire. Sanders would graduate with an English literature degree from the University of Waterloo before attending Toronto Metropolitan University, where she studied journalism.

Sanders got her start as a writer working as a freelance journalist for several national publications such as Today’s Parent, the Toronto Star, Reader’s Digest, National Post, Canadian Living, and Maclean’s Magazine. At some point, the internet began to destroy traditional journalism, and this was when she thought it was time to become a historical fiction novelist, which had always been a dream. It was while she was at the University of Toronto, taking a creative writing certificate course, that she wrote her first novel. Rachel’s Secret got its inspiration from her grandmother’s nondescript Russian Jewish childhood. Her debut was a crossover/adult novel, which would become an iTunes Book of the Week and got a Starred Review in Booklist. Shelly Sanders would then make it into a trilogy with Rachel’s Hope and Rachel’s Promise. Two of the titles would get an Association of Jewish Libraries Notable Books for Teens award. Shelly was named a TD Canada Book Week Author, and her first novel made the shortlist for the Vine Awards for Jewish Literature.

Shelly Sanders was eighteen years old when she found out about her Jewish heritage. But it was not until she was a full-blown adult that she discovered she also had Latvian Jewish roots. She learned about the latter when she stumbled upon old pictures of her great-grandmother that were taken in Daugavpils, Latvia, then known in Yiddish as Dvinsk. Fascinated, she began to dig into the Jewish history of Latvia in addition to her own maternal ancestry. At some point, she traveled to Latvia, where she learned that more than two dozen of her novels had been killed in the Holocaust. The disclosure changed everything she believed she knew about who she was. After doing further research and traveling to Latvia for the second time, she published the Canadian bestseller Daughters of the Occupation. Set during the Holocaust in Latvia, it is an exploration of intergenerational trauma, which is a constant motif on her maternal side of the family. She now has at least five titles to her name.

Besides her writing, Shelly Sanders has also worked at Sheridan College, where she taught journalism. She has run and still runs several creative writing workshops and has tutored at-risk children. She is active in the writing community and is a member of PEN America, Women Fiction Writers Association, and the Artists Against Antisemitism Canada Liaison. When she is not writing or teaching, she spends her time paddle boarding, painting, playing tennis, or walking her dogs.

Shelly Sanders’ work, Rachel’s Secret, is a thrilling story that is set in pre-revolutionary Russia and follows Sergei, a Christian, and Rachel, a Jew. The fourteen-year-old Rachel is certain that she wants more from life than enacting the traditional roles of mother and wife. All she wants is to become a writer, but her dream is put on hold when there is a murder of a young Christian man, and she has to keep the identity of the killer hidden. Rumour and prejudice result in tensions between the Jews and Christians who have never seen eye to eye. While keeping the secret, anti-Jewish propaganda and lies are published in the papers, resulting in a Christian riot on Easter Sunday. At the end of it all, Rachel’s home has been destroyed, and a person who meant so much to her is dead. Struggling to survive following the pogroms, she gets help from Sergei, a young Christian man whose father was heavily involved in the riots. With everything and everyone against them, they find comfort in an unexpected bond, which becomes the hope for goodness in a time of violence and chaos.

In Rachel’s Promise, Shelly Sanders picks up where she left off in the debut. The work is set in the early 20th century, where Rachel and her family have to leave Russia to escape the pogroms. They take the Trans Siberian Railway to the coast and get on a ship headed to Shanghai. However, upon arriving in China, life is strange and difficult, even though Rachel never gives up on her dreams of becoming an author. The best opportunity arrives in the form of a Jewish newspaper that needs a writer. Back in Russia, Sergei, her friend, has left home and headed to St. Petersburg to work in a factory so that he can support his family. He finds factory work dangerous, and life in the city is quite a shock. It is not long before he joins the rebellious workers and realizes how dangerous this could be. Separated by so much, the only connection they have is through their regular letters which show their hope for the future despite turbulent political times.

In 2014, Shelly Sanders published Rachel Hope, a fitting conclusion to The Rachel Trilogy. After being forced out of her home in Russia, Rachel, the young Jewish woman, had settled in Shanghai, China, as a refugee. Separated from Sergei, her young Christian boyfriend who stayed back in Russia, she has finally landed in California in the United States. She is determined to make it and start a new life and will not let anything or anyone stop her from achieving her dreams. She finds her inspiration from women’s vote activists Anna Strunsky and Emma Goldman. But when she is finally reunited with Sergei, she realizes that they have grown apart and their idea of what it means to be free is poles apart.