The Pomegranate Gate is Ariel Kaplan's epic Jewish fantasy that follows three main characters as they navigate their world of mysteries and the tension and high stakes of the Inquisition. Rich and luscious, set against a fantastical background, the book takes the reader on a journey through myths and lore as we follow our protagonist and the connections between them. I would recommend this book to fans of Naomi Novik as it has the same cadence-like story-telling.

yes! yes! yes! i enjoyed this book SO much and now i’m anxiously waiting for the sequel!!

thank you netgalley for the e-arc!

The pomegranate gate was a good read. The characters were vivid and the worldbuilding stunning and immense. The only issue I had with the book was the wry slow pace. The end 1/3 picked up massively but the first was plodding and I put down the book for months before I picked it back up again. But all in all an enjoyable read and I will read the sequel.

The story and the world-building are well done enough. The setting is a fantastical version of Spain in 1492 where the Jewish population was given a choice: either convert to Christianism or leave (leaving everything behind). I could really envision the world and what was happening on it.

The problem came with the characters. Toba and her side characters (there is a character in her side of the story that I particularly hated, let's say, another version of Toba) were simply put boring. I didn't care about anything that happened to them. Naftaly's story was a little better: I liked Helena and "the old woman" even if I didn't like Natfaly that much either.

Thank you Netgalley, author, and publisher for the ARC.

Slow to start, but unputdownable by the end. Portal fantasy with djinn-like creatures and a lost city, against the background of the Inquisition and the forced conversion / exile of Spanish Jews, which is mirrored in the portal world by the Cacederia.

The Queen of Sefarad has ordered all Jews to convert or be exiled and Toba, Naftaly, and thousands of others are forced to flee their homes. Toba accidentally stumbles through a pomegranate grove into a magical realm and Naftaly, intent on rescuing Toba, finds new companions who harbor dangerous secrets.

There was A LOT going on in this book and I’m really not certain how to describe it. Don’t get me wrong, I liked it a lot, but it’s a hard book to review because there’s so much going on and as the reader, you are kept in the dark for a lot of the big mysteries until the end. So, here goes…

This book is the first book in a trilogy and it certainly feels like it. There is a lot of world-building and explanation happening and the pace feels pretty slow. Most books in a trilogy have some sort of capability to stand alone as its own story, but I think this was a very long, elaborate set up to the rest of the series.

Toba and Naftaly both have magical abilities but they have been advised all their lives to keep it a secret and neither really knows why. Eventually these abilities come out and they are able to use them to varying degrees of success for rescue, political intrigue, and just sheer entertainment. The friendships that are built in this book are really heartwarming.

But the religious persecution part of the book felt the most lacking in terms of depth. There’s no real explanation as to why the Queen has ordered Jews to convert, or what they are converting to, or what happens if they don’t convert. I just felt really confused and it just added another layer to a book that already has plenty.

Overall, I enjoyed it visiting their magical world and I look forward to reading more book in the series to see what happens to Toba and Naftaly going forward and how they are able to further harness their abilities.

This book felt like the first part of a tryptic painting you see on the altar of churches. It's the first installment in a trilogy and you can tell but I don't mean that in a negative light. It was slow but not in a boring way, more like in a "setting up this tapestry and slowly developing it in this first part" kind of way. The vibes were immaculate, the characters were amazing and I'm so excited to read the new book. 4.5 stars

This was a very cool but slightly too long adult fantasy. I was really taken in by the historical setting, and the characters were interesting and well-developed - I just wish it had been a bit pared down as the middle heavily dragged.

This one wasn't for me. I found the story a bit hard to follow and it just wasn't clicking. I had to dnf it, which I did not want to do.

I was given a copy in exchange for an honest review,

The Pomegranate Gate is a unique book, in the aspect of primary Jewish representation. This makes it something I have not encountered before. With this, I would not say I was completely let down by its premise, but I am still questioning certain aspects of the book which I do not feel make sense (to me), nor do I understand how they tie in(to) what this book is about. This seems like a book which is centred around any fantasy-related fluff rather than giving me a full flesh of what I am looking at.

I would like, despite this, to give this book another shot in the future, and hope I might look at it in a different light.

This one surprised me. I went into it without many ecpectations and in the beginning, I wasn't realy feeling it . I couldn't concentrate on it, the characters were uninteresting and the plot difficult to follow. But! At some point, I noticed that I had actually been enjoying myself for a while? I don't know exactly when it happened but this book did a total 180 for me. The characters really grow on you even if it takes very long to get to know them. And the way the different plot strangs start to connect? Amazing. Can not wait to get my hands on part two.

Fantasy is having a moment, but tight plot development doesn't seem to be on that same trajectory. Kaplan's "Pomegranate Gate" suffers the same maladies of many fantasy debuts: too much, but never soon enough.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for granting me free access to the advanced digital copy of this book.

Me he visto gratamente sorprendida por The Pomegranate Gate, la primera entrega de The Mirror Realm Cycle de Ariel Kaplan. Me llamaba mucho la atención el momento histórico simulado en la historia, con la expulsión de los judíos sefardíes de España, un poco como cuando supe que The Bird King de G. Willow Wilson transcurría en la Alhambra. Pero me he encontrado mucho más de lo que esperaba.


Kaplan ha logrado crear un mundo fantástico repleto de lirismo y magia, con raíces en el judaísmo pero con toques de trascendencia política. La acción se desarrolla simultáneamente en dos mundos, el humano y el mágico de los Maziks, unido solamente durante las noches de luna llena gracias al portal del título. La narración recae principalmente sobre dos personajes (aunque hay más puntos de vista), Toba Peres y Naftaly Cresques, dos seres aparentemente humanos pero tocados por algún don que les hace diferentes a los demás y que en muchas ocasiones les ha condenado al ostracismo. Me gusta la voz que la autora le da a cada uno, dos personas buenas que se ven arrolladas por las circunstancias pero que siguen intentando tomar siempre la decisión adecuada aunque quizá no sea la que más se avenga a sus intereses. La decisión de expulsar a los judíos que no se conviertan al cristianismo de su hogar, impulsará a miles de personas a un viaje sin un destino claro y nuestros dos protagonistas se verán arrastrados por la marea, pero con un fin mucho más inquietante.

Me encanta la representación del mundo mágico de los Maziks, en una imagen especular pero deformada de la geografía y política del mundo humano. Mientras que en uno de los mundos tenemos la Inquisición, en el otro sufren la presencia de La Cacería. Pero en todas partes cuecen habas y las intrigas políticas están a la orden del día y arrastrarán a los dos a una huida en la que irán descubriendo sus especiales capacidades y se aclararán sus orígenes, supuestamente mundanos.


Me gustaría sobre todo hacer hincapié en un personaje secundario que primero parece no tener apenas relevancia, Elena, la abuela de Toba, pero que luego adquiere un rol fundamental. ¡Por fin un personaje femenino de más o menos avanzada edad con importancia en un mundo fantástico! Me apasiona como se referencia la sabiduría popular que muchas veces se desprecia pero que contiene perlas de conocimiento. Mención aparte merece también la señora mayor que ni siquiera recibe nombre en todo el libro pero sin cuya presencia Naftaly estaría totalmente perdido.

La novela va creciendo conforme va avanzando, con unas ramificaciones inesperadas que hacen que sea prácticamente imprescindible leer la segunda entrega no solo para comprender toda la historia si no para continuar disfrutando de las apasionantes aventuras de los personajes. Y es que el último cuarto del libro los componen bofetadas constantes de revelaciones inesperadas que te hacen mirar a los capítulos anteriores con otros ojos. La intriga está muy pero que muy bien utilizada a lo largo de toda la novela, pero como digo esa última parte es de las que te pega a las páginas y te deja sin dormir hasta que acabas de leer. Os recomiendo mucho esta lectura, no os arrepentiréis.

This is the first book in a Jewish folklore inspired fantasy trilogy. I always love reading about other cultures and oral traditions, and I enjoyed this read as well. Like many other debut, heavy fantasies, this book suffers from some slow pacing issues. I really enjoyed the characters, though. Of course, Naftaly and Toba but also the side characters as well. I'm interested to see where book two will go.

Ariel Kaplan's The Pomegranate Gate is the first instalment in the Mirror Realm Cycle series. This fantasy series is inspired by the history of the Iberian Peninsula during the High Middle Ages. Specifically by the Spanish Inquisition era and Jewish folklore.

In The Pomegranate Gate Kaplan masterfully blends the history of the Iberian Peninsula, Jewish folklore, mythology and fantasy to create an enthraling unputdownable story with wonderfully complex, flawed and intriguing characters.

The Pomegranate Gate will be perfect for fans of historical fantasy, especially Katherine Arden's Winternight series. The book will also resonate with people who enjoy reading stories steeped in mythology and folklore, especially underrepresented mythologies and folklore.

i wish i liked fantasy, but i haven’t found a book i click with. this story was interesting but i found myself feeling like it was a chore to get through

Thank you to the author Ariel Kaplan, publishers Kensington Books and Erewhon Books, and TLC Book Tours, for an advance paperback copy of THE POMEGRANATE GATES. Thank you also to NetGalley for an accomanying widget. All views are mine.

Three (or more) things I loved:

1. The style of the writing is really beautiful! She gives just enough detail, which creates a lovely pace, contemplative and yet comfortably swift, like riding in a boat along a river of her words!

2. I love Naftaly's character trajectory, that he is a dream walker with his father, and the tragedy this leads to for him is staggering! A great turn for the character and the story.

3. I love how she writes the character with visions. It's not stuffed with ableist language and stigma, just the very functional observations that if others knew about his visions, they could misjudge him. Try to thwart his freedom. Excellent writing!

4. These skills are fantastic! This girl can translate the same passage into Italian with one hand and Arabic with the other hand simultaneously!🫨

5. I love the shade character, and I'm really interested to see where it goes in Kaplan's capable hands.

6. Magical Spontaneous Creation of Animal Life? Omg now that is cool. Can't wait to see where this goes!

7. I'm a huge fan of the glossary at the back of the book and the extensive use of Yiddish in the text. This elevates the difficulty, I think, but also the reward level of the read.

Three (or less) things I didn't love:

This section isn't only for criticisms. It's merely for items that I felt something for other than "love" or some interpretation thereof.

1. I'm not a giant fan of giving the cast at the beginning of the book. None of the information relates to the rest, or anything, for the matter, making it impossible to remember. It makes me feel like I'm having a huge cast thrown at me all at once.

2. Honestly, there are a lot of great things about this book, but I got lost a third of the way through. I pushed through to the end because I kept hoping I would find my way and re-engage with the material, but I never did. I finished with a murky idea of what I'd read after a certain point of the storyline.

Rating: 🪄🪄🪄.5 magical skills
Recommend? Yes
Finished: Sep 15 '23
Format: Advance hardback, SMPI, Digital arc, Kindle, NetGalley
Read this book if you like:
✨️ magical skills
🧙 character driven story
🦄 fantasy
👨‍👩‍👧‍👦 large cast

This book took me completely by surprise. Kaplan creates an intriguing, unique magic system that combines Jewish mythology with a version of Arabian mythology set in a fantastical version of Spain during the time of the infamous Spanish Inquisition and expulsions of the Jews from the Iberian Peninsula. Kaplan includes so much political intrigue and a large, yet unique and fully developed, cast of characters with relationship reveals that subvert expectation. Kaplan kept me fully engaged and made me eager to read the sequel as soon as I can get my hands on it.

This is a relatively enjoyable YA read with nicely developed characters. Was impressed by the writing, especially the plot development!