What if he’s the right one, but it’s all wrong?

Headwinds Publishing announces Star Crossed by Bette Isacoff. Set in New England in the late 60s, it is the poignant, funny, and inspirational chronicle of an interfaith courtship at a time when interfaith love was exotic and forbidden. When Bette met Richard in 1968, he was a seventeen-year-old Jewish kid. She, at twenty-one, was a […]

Headwinds Publishing announces Star Crossed by Bette Isacoff. Set in New England in the late 60s, it is the poignant, funny, and inspirational chronicle of an interfaith courtship at a time when interfaith love was exotic and forbidden.

When Bette met Richard in 1968, he was a seventeen-year-old Jewish kid. She, at twenty-one, was a Catholic college senior doing a practice-teaching assignment at his high school.  Seven weeks later, they were engaged. To say their two-year courtship was ill-received is an understatement.

This couple faced four impediments to marriage: religion, age (at a significant developmental stage), education level, and the tenor of the times—when Jews and Catholics rarely married “outside.” Throw in outraged parents, scornful siblings, snickering friends, legal obstacles, uncooperative clergy. . . and still, they persevered. With secret post office boxes, clandestine meetings, and Bette’s extended family, (who conspired with Richard against their own blood kin), the curious relationship was nurtured.


According to Naomi Schaefer Riley, 45% of all U.S. marriages in the last decade have been interfaith.  While there are a number of recent ‘how-to’ books, this is the first book written from the perspective of a blissful forty-three year marriage that has withstood all the naysayers and skeptics. Star Crossed is a one-of-a-kind look back with an important message for interfaith couples today. Cross-generational and cross-cultural, Star Crossed speaks to young men and women considering or entering an interfaith relationship and it challenges the old order espoused by their parents.

Bette Isacoff has been a high school English teacher, juvenile probation officer, computer programmer, and registered nurse. Bette bred, trained, and exhibited Champion, Group, and Best in Specialty Show winning Finnish Spitz under the Kitsuna (reg.) prefix. She is credited with bringing the breed from total obscurity in this country to recognition by the American Kennel Club. Her writing has appeared in the AKC GAZETTE, (where she was also a breed columnist from 1988-1991), DOG FANCY, Golden Ages magazine, and The National Observer. She was the creator and twenty year editor of The Finnish Line (monthly newsletter of the Finnish Spitz Club of America), and is a professional member of the Dog Writers Association of America. Isacoff obtained her BA, and MFA in Creative Writing, from Albertus Magnus College. She and her husband reside in The Berkshires.

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