Sandra was born and raised in Argentina, and immigrated to the United States a little over two decades ago. While her academic background in her birth country is in psychoanalysis, anthropology, Judaic studies, and Hebrew language, she is best known for her accomplishments in Spanglish as an award winning historical novelist and award winning screenwriter.
Franzisca’s Box:
Winner of: 2016 New Apple Literary Award- Special Selection in Historical Fiction
Finalist: 2016 Goethe Awards for post 1750 Historical Fiction
Top Ten Books by The Latino Author 2016
The Last Fernandez
Winner of the 2018 Marie M. Irvine Literary Excellence Award
International Best Seller Rank- March, 29 2016US: Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #79,836 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)· #91 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Literature & Fiction > World Literature > Jewish·UK: Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #29,342 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)· #12 in Kindle Store > Books > Literature & Fiction > World Literature > Jewish· #16 in Books > Fiction > Religious & Inspirational > Jewish· #65 in Kindle Store > Books > Literature & Fiction > Historical Fiction > EuropeanMystery, betrayal, murder, and passionate love were things Sofia Lazar only experienced as a movie producer. All of that changed after her grandmother's sudden death when she comes face to face with an unwanted revelation contained in a tattered box. The meager contents of the box take her back to her childhood and the fantastic bedtime stories that Abuela, her grandmother, used to tell her of a heroic warrior girl named Franzisca. Now, two decades later, fragments of Franzisca's stories creep back into Sofia's life, tying Franzisca and her grandmother to an unknown past. With the memories of her childhood bedtime stories to guide her, Sofia sets out to piece together her grandmother's mysterious history, leading her to discover the truth behind her life.Set against the backdrop of World War II Romania, the immigration of Nazi criminals into South America, the later years of the Military Regime in Argentina during the 1980s, and present-day California, Franzisca's Box is a story of war that ultimately affects three generations of women who will never find peace until they call for a ceasefire in their own wars and surrender to forgiveness and love.
After being inexplicably removed from her family in a small fishing town in Argentina, six year-old Angelina is sent to a Catholic convent where she spends her next twelve years. During her lonely days at the convent, she finds solace in the company of a mysterious presence, by the name of Sara Fernandez, which gradually reels her into the life of a Marrano family living at the end of the 15th century in Cordoba, Spain.As Angelina embeds herself in the life of the Fernandez family, she understands that Sara is not a product of her imagination, rather the link to her secret past and her only hope for survival.Set amid the notorious Spanish Inquisition and the murderous Dirty War in Argentina of the late 1970s, two women, more than four centuries apart, transcend the barriers of time and fight political and religious persecution to ensure the survival of their lineage.
August 3, 2016
Four gunshots, a dead woman, and a frantic crowd. Veronica Simon watched the chaos unfold around her, unable to grasp how this nightmare started…
It was supposed to be a glorious day. The grand event Veronica had diligently planned over the last year was finally here. Dame Salva, the legendary nonagenarian, the champion of women’s rights, was set to deliver her last public address before a hall filled to capacity. But the excitement turned to panic when Raisel Wisnik - an old hat maker, gunned down the famed activist. The police tried in vain to get her to talk, but Raisel would only speak to one person— Veronica Simon.
As Raisel tells Veronica her story, she is swept back seventy years to a shtetl in 1922, Poland. It is there that Veronica discovers Raisel, at only fourteen years of age, was sold as sex slave to the notorious Jewish Polish mafia, the Zwi Migdal, and shipped to South America. The details of Raisel’s tragic journey cross paths with the Dame’s, making it hard for Veronica to distinguish fact from delusion or one woman from the other. Now, with conflicting facts in her hands, Veronica is left with the choice of either walking away from it all and labeling Raisel a deranged old woman or giving a voice to a macabre story that lay buried for over seven decades.