About Bright ONe
Inspired by true events, Bright One is the first of a six part series that follows the life Jetti Finkelthal, a young Jewish mother in Czernowitz, Romania, as she faces impossible choices in a world unraveling around her. As antisemitism tightens its grip and war presses ever closer, Jetti clings to her daughter, Berta, with the fragile hope that love and courage can carve out a path to survival.
Drawn from family letters, photographs, and oral histories, Lisajoy Sachs brings to life a story that is both intimate and universal—woven with the threads of daily life, the pull of memory, and the heroism of women who refused to surrender to despair.
Through Jetti’s sacrifices and fortitude, Bright One illuminates the enduring strength of family bonds and the shadows of trauma that pass through generations. It is a story of loss and survival, and of the unbreakable thread between mother and child.
For readers drawn to historical fiction that lingers in the heart long after the last page, Bright One offers a deeply human portrait of love tested by history’s darkest hours.
Winner of the Independent Press Award for Religious Fiction
Finalist of the International Book Awards for Women’s Fiction
About Lisajoy Sachs
Lisajoy Sachs is an award-winning author of historical fiction whose work explores memory, identity, resilience, and the enduring strength of the human spirit. Drawing inspiration from true stories preserved through family letters, photographs, and oral histories, she creates richly researched novels that illuminate the personal lives behind history's defining moments.
Her debut novel, Bright One, launched the six-part Bright One series inspired by her own family ancestry in pre-World War II Europe. Bright One received the Independent Press Award for Religious Fiction, was named a Finalist in the 2026 International Book Awards for Women's Fiction, and is available in hardcover, eBook, and audiobook, narrated by Alice Sockett.
The series continues with Golden Flight, winner of the 2026 International Book Awards for Religious Fiction, which was honored prior to its July 2026 release. The third installment, Aliyah, is scheduled for publication in 2027. The remaining titles in the completed saga include Folding Light, Restoring Hope, and Fading Night. Sachs has completed manuscripts for the entire six-book series, an ambitious literary undertaking that traces the lives, displacement, survival, and rebuilding of her ancestors across pre-war and wartime Europe.
In Spring 2027, Sachs will also release her first standalone novel, The Fungi of Time: A Ripley E. VanWinkle Adventure, a historical time-travel novel that reimagines Washington Irving's classic tale through a contemporary lens while celebrating the rich history and folklore of New York's Catskill Mountains.
Born and raised between Long Island and the Catskill Mountains of New York, Sachs developed an early appreciation for history, landscape, and storytelling. She holds a Master of Fine Arts from the City University of New York and a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Alfred University. Her professional background spans fine arts, interior design, metal smithing, lapidary arts, and the craft beer and hospitality industries. She is an Accredited Jewelry Professional through the Gemological Institute of America, a Certified Beer Server® through the Cicerone® Certification Program, and a graduate of the Hop & Brew School at Yakima Chief Hops.
With the eye of a visual artist and the discipline of a historian, Sachs writes with cinematic scope, emotional depth, and meticulous historical research. Her work is driven by a commitment to preserving family history and honoring the resilience of ordinary people whose lives were shaped by extraordinary events. Through both historical fiction and imaginative storytelling, she invites readers to explore the enduring connections between past and present.
Now residing in the Catskill Mountains of New York, Sachs continues to write and research while embracing an active life filled with cycling, skiing, and travel with her partner and their standard poodle, Hops.
About Golden Flight
Golden Flight
Book Two of the Bright One Series
RELEASING - JULY 14th 2026
In 1933, as antisemitism spreads across Europe, fifteen year old Berta Finkelthal leaves Czernowitz with a new name. Abramovich. A name she never imagined would replace the one she was born into. Married to a man three times her age, she is forced to surrender childhood overnight, stepping into the role of wife before she has fully learned who she is. Marriage was meant to secure her future. Instead, it carries her across borders just as hostility toward Jews intensifies and the ground beneath her people begins to shift.
What was meant to be a quick and safe departure becomes a desperate migration as anti Jewish persecution grows and escape routes narrow. By 1935, Berta and her husband Solomon are stranded in Istanbul, suspended between continents and consequence. Months pass in suffocating uncertainty. Promised departures collapse without explanation. Funds diminish. Friendships disappear into another ship’s wake. And within the confines of marriage, Berta begins to understand that protection does not always resemble love, and that survival may demand more maturity than she was ever meant to possess.
When passage to Palestine is finally secured, relief does not come easily. She has learned how quickly certainty dissolves. Ahead lies open water and the fragile hope of safety. Behind her, a Europe turning its back on Jews and closing its doors. Between those two realities stands a young woman who must decide what parts of herself she is willing to sacrifice in order to endure.
Set against the tightening grip of pre war Europe, this sweeping and intimate second installment of the Bright One series traces Berta’s forced coming of age amid exile, identity loss, and the quiet, often invisible costs of survival.
Winner of the International Book Awards for Religious
Fiction
About
The Fungi of Time
The Fungi of Time
A Ripley E. VanWinkle Adventure
RELEASING SPRING 2027
When Ripley "Rip" VanWinkle sets out into the Catskill Mountains in search of wild mushrooms, he expects nothing more than another quiet afternoon in the woods.
Instead, he stumbles into a mystery that defies reason.
As the boundaries between past and present begin to blur, Rip finds himself drawn into a journey that stretches far beyond the forests he has known his entire life. Every step raises new questions, every answer uncovers an older secret, and the deeper he ventures, the more uncertain he becomes about the nature of time itself.
When he finally returns home, the world he left behind is no longer the one he remembers.
Blending historical fiction, mystery, suspense, and unforgettable adventure, The Fungi of Time is a sweeping novel about friendship, survival, memory, and the extraordinary choices that shape an ordinary life. Set against the rich history and folklore of New York's Catskill Mountains, it asks a question that lingers long after the final page:
If you were given the chance to step beyond history itself... would you ever find your way home again?
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