The author of the short story collection, Tell Me a Story, Tell Me the Truth, and co-author of Midway to China and Beyond, the biography of a globetrotting Montreal businessman, Gina Roitman’s work has appeared in anthologies and magazines including Poetica, Wherever I Find Myself, the Forward and carte-blanche.

The story of Rokhl’s Holocaust experiences and that of Hannah’s budding relationship (and the weight of history that it and the real estate deal unearth) are enthralling and Don’t Ask is a hard book to put down until you finish it.

Carefully and generously layered, Roitman’s novel, outwardly labelled as a literary thriller, is a powerful story of a daughter dealing with her mother’s death while reckoning with a family past so traumatic its truth is haunted by history. - Sharon Morrisey, Montreal Review of Books

Part mystery, part historical novel, part love story, Don’t Ask delves into a question that still resonates nearly 80 years after the end of the Holocaust: For how many generations does guilt continue? ... [Roitman, who] like Hannah was born to Jewish Holocaust survivors in a postwar displaced-persons camp, deserves credit for posing these challenges in such a readable narrative.

It is not often that I read a book in one day. However, once I started the first few pages of Don’t Ask, I could not put it down. In fact it was hard for me to get around the fact this was fiction. Montreal and its neighbourhoods are well represented. We learn real facts about the Ritz Carlton Hotel, Outremont High School, Sam Borenstein’s paintings, the Hotel Bonaventure and more.