I want to have cof­fee with Ruth Shapi­ra, the pro­tag­o­nist in Kathryn Jacobi’s first nov­el, and her friends. In fact, I used to have cof­fee with a group of friends just like them. Although my friends met in a sub­ur­ban strip mall in LA and Ruth’s friends met at a side­walk café in north­ern Israel, the rit­u­al of a week­ly cof­fee klatch builds the kinds of friend­ships that are stead­fast sup­port in a blus­tery world.

And the winds of change blow hard soon after the nov­el opens, when Hezbol­lah starts launch­ing mis­siles just to the north of Ruth’s home. The war dri­ves two women into Ruth’s life: Yele­na, a Russ­ian pri­ma don­na flee­ing from a north­ern city under heavy shelling; and Sami­ra, a high­ly com­pe­tent, uncom­pro­mis­ing Mus­lim house­keep­er. The bonds between these women col­lapse racial ten­sions from an area the size of a coun­try into an area the size of Ruth’s home. An immi­grant to Israel from New York, Ruth’s reac­tions are not always shared by those of native Israelis, includ­ing Ruth’s own hus­band.

The plot thick­ens, and then war thick­ens it some more. It places Ruth’s only son Ari square­ly between the crosshairs of the Hezbol­lah. It push­es Yelena’s son and Samira’s daugh­ter into a bomb shel­ter togeth­er, ignit­ing star-crossed teenage pas­sion. It ter­ror­izes Mus­lim chil­dren in the next vil­lage. It takes the life of a friend’s son.

Yet, Jaco­bi keeps con­trol. The char­ac­ters read real, and their respons­es believ­able. As the cast grows and the rela­tion­ships between them inten­si­fy, Jacobi’s fic­tion does what fac­tu­al report­ing often miss­es – it illu­mi­nates the sub­tle­ty of the con­nec­tions between peo­ple. Life is not easy in a place where con­flict rip­ples through every rela­tion­ship, but like this book, it’s rich and com­plex, and as sat­is­fy­ing as a hot cup of cof­fee with friends.