Eli Rosen works at his family's brickyard. They are successful, but when the Nazis march into their small town of Lublin, Poland, everything changes. Set in 3 different time periods, we follow Eli Rosen as his life is unavoidably changed, but many of the ups and downs are centered around one slick snake- Maximilion Poleski.

1939- We see Lublin as the Nazis take over the town and what that means for all the Jews living in the area.
1946- Eli is in a liberation camp, trying to find out where he and his family can settle, since many borders are closed to the Jews who are desperate to leave.
1965- Eli works for the government and is involved in an undercover sting to take down some very corrupt legislators and war contractors.

The bouncing back and forth between the time periods didn't work for me in this book. I understand that it was supposed to help with the suspense, but instead it broke it up too much for me. I would have much rather preferred following it sequentially. Little dropped hints in the future about what had happened in the past only annoyed me. And right when I was really feeling connected to characters, I felt that I was wrenched out of that time period and therefore lost the momentum of the story. The writing was good otherwise. I did feel invested in the characters. I did want to see justice done. I just didn't like the ultimate execution of the tale.

Thank you NetGalley for an ARC in exchange for my honest opinion.

Wow this one was a little drawn out for me. I feel like 70 chapters might not have been necessary to get to what was actually going to happen. I almost abandoned it half way through because it just didn’t feel like it was going anywhere but I decided to stick to it in the end.

It tells the story of Eli Rosenthal and his family living in occupied Poland during WWII. The book concentrated more on the day to day lives of the people in Poland and how they managed to continue on despite what was happening to them. Eli owns a construction company but when the Nazi’s come to take over Maximilian convinces them to let him run the business for them. Eli has paid Maximilian to keep his family safe but Maximilian Poleski is as shady as they come and although he has vowed to keep Eli and his family safe he is Fraternizing with the enemy and benefiting greatly.

When things take a turn for the worse Eli vows that he will get his revenge for all that Maximilian has done to his family.

Thanks to Netgalley and St. Martins Press for the advanced copy!

A sprawling novel of a man's hunt for the truth in the wake of WWII. Eli, his wife Esther, and their son Isaak find themselves in an impossible position as the Nazis move into Poland. Maximllian Poleski promises to keep them safe as long as Eli continues to manage his business, which Poleski has essentially stolen from him. You know that doesn't happen, don't you? But somehow, Eli and Izaak survive and make it to the US. not knowing what happened to Esther. Once in Chicago, Eli begins to uncover Poleski's tracks,. Sadly for the characters, there aren't any surprises here. Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC. It's a slightly different take on the WWII novel and one which will appeal to fans of the genre.

I am a huge fan of all of Ronald Balson’s historical fiction works. His stories are rich and powerful, and he is the master of drawing the reader into a world of suspense and mystery. Therefore, I was thrilled to receive an advance reader copy of his latest novel and winner of the National Jewish Book Award.

Eli’s Promise is a story of survival, justice and redemption, that will have you glued to the pages as Eli tells a story that spans decades. The story moves and weaves seamlessly through three different time periods. The reader is whisked back to 1939 Poland, 1946 Germany and 1965 Chicago.

1939: Eli Rosen lives with his wife Esther and their young son in the Polish town of Lublin, where his family owns a construction company. As a consequence of the Nazi occupation, Eli’s company is Aryanized, appropriated and transferred to Maximilian Poleski―an unprincipled profiteer who peddles favors to Lublin’s subjugated residents. An uneasy alliance is formed; Poleski will keep the Rosen family safe if Eli will manage the business. Will Poleski honor his promise or will their relationship end in betrayal and tragedy?

1946: Eli resides with his son in a displaced persons camp in Allied-occupied Germany hoping for a visa to America. His wife has been missing since the war. One man is sneaking around the camps selling illegal visas; might he know what has happened to her?

1965: Eli rents a room in Albany Park, Chicago. He is on a mission. With patience, cunning, and relentless focus, he navigates unfamiliar streets and dangerous political backrooms, searching for the truth.

Eli’s Promise paints a heartbreaking and vivid picture of Eli Rosen’s prominent family as they are slowly stripped of business, work, family and eventually their lives by the Germans. As I read, I felt as though I was inside the pages of the book and connecting with the characters in each time period. I was with Eli through the decades as he worked to bring those to justice who used his family and others to line their own pockets and gain power.

Balson tackled a topic not often written about in WWII historical fiction, war-profiteering. I knew this was going on, and still goes on, but I didn’t know a lot about. In the story promises of protection were made and sold to those desperate to find a way to live. To the Germans and to profiteers, it was a game. As I read, I felt such a strong resentment against the characters that took advantage of others during such horrific and dangerous times. I’m so glad Balson brought greater light on those who prey on the weak and suppressed for their own gains.

This compelling book is one you will not want to miss. It is perfectly relayed, phenomenal, and a part of history that again reveals what WWII and post WWII was about. I finished this book in one day, and I know this is a story I will come back and reread.

Overall, Eli’s Promise is not to be missed for fans of stories about families, love, redemption, and historical fiction lovers like me. It will move you through the full range of emotions, as Balson has a way of creating a powerful, gripping and moving story.

Ronald H. Balson continues to turn out enthralling historical fiction books that bring the eras he writes about into sharp, clear focus for his readers. With Eli's Promise, the story spans three eras: that of Nazi-occupied Poland during World War II; that of the American Zone and displaced persons camps of Post-War (1946) Germany; and that of Chicago in 1965 at the height of the Vietnam War.

Throughout the book, we follow the family of Eli Rosen, his wife Esther and son Isaak, and also a man named Maximilian Poleski, who was a 'fixer' during the war, promising to help people get what they needed by working for a fee and collaborating with the Nazis.

Balson writes the scenes of capricious cruelty, inhumanity and humiliation experienced during the war and of the reactions of the American soldiers as they came to free the camps with an acid that burns the scenes into the brains of his readers. Shock and horror are appropriate reactions to this dark, devastating time in the history of humanity, so difficult to read about let alone fathom. But Balson doesn't just beat you over the head with the horrors. He also writes about life's daily routines, the love within families, the mutual respect between people of faith. He writes about how life begins to change insidiously day-to-day, how the pride in a homeland turns to dust when you realize you suddenly aren't welcome there anymore, and there is nowhere else to go to be safe. Hopes are dashed, the future you planned isn't possible, you realize you are helpless to save those you love or even yourself. Yet still, in these darkest of times, there are good people who strive to do the right thing, who try to help others, who focus on surviving so that their fellow countrymen won't be forgotten, who seek justice so that evil won't triumph. Balson takes you there. Let me repeat that. Balson takes you there... It is an experience you won't soon forget.

My favorite book by Balson remains When We Were Brothers, the first book of his that I read. That book is so excellently done that on finishing it, I vowed to read everything else he wrote. I have. Eli's Promise earns 3.5 stars rounded to 4 stars.

My thanks to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for allowing me to read a copy of the book in exchange for an unbiased review. All opinions expressed here are my own.

Thanks to Netgalley who provided me with an ACR.

Eli tells his story and kept his promise in this historical fiction book spanning WWII to the 1960s.

It is told from three different time frames and they are all intertwined. It gives a different prospective of the traitors involved in the Nazi Germany.

It's a good solid read. I just found it too long and slow reading

Ronald Balson opens Eli’s Promise with the story of how, on April 8, 1945, the United States Army’s Sixth Armored Division learned of the abandoned Jewish prisoners at Buchenwald and with Corporal Reilly’s April 11 rescue of Eli Rosen and young son Izaak. A month later, now at Föhrenwald Displaced Person’s Camp, American occupied zone, Bavaria, Germany, Eli learns something that astounds him and prompts his “solemn promise”: he will have his “day of reckoning.”

Balson sets only the brief rescue section in Buchenwald. Rather than presenting the graphic horrors of concentration camp life and death, he focuses on the Polish Jews’ plight under German occupation at Lublin and Lodz, the post-war life of the majority at refugee camps as they await visas to leave Germany for the U.S. or other destinations, and roughly a year in Eli Rosen’s life in the Albany Park neighborhood of Chicago at the height of the Vietnam War. Dividing his story into these three time periods, Balson clearly identifies each short chapter with place and date, thus alleviating confusion.

Eli’s Promise is a mixed genre novel--part well-researched historical novel and part mysterious thriller. Balson masterfully handles both genres, bringing the Rosen family to life so that readers care about them; educating readers about the German occupation, displaced persons camps, and graft and profiteering during wartime; and keeping readers on the edge of their seats during the Chicago section as Eli doggedly continues striving to fulfill his promise.

Because this is largely an historical novel, readers cannot help wondering were fiction diverges from history. In Balson’s acknowledgments section, which follow the novel, he satisfies that curiosity.

Eli’s Promise is award-winning Ron Balson’s sixth novel. He followed his captivating debut, Once We Were Brothers, with Saving Sophie, Karolina’s Twins, The Trust, and The Girl from Berlin. Balson draws upon his experience as a trial lawyer and educator in his books; however, while reading them, I know I am also in the hands of a masterful novelist.

Thanks to NetGalley, St. Martin’s Press, and Ronald H. Balson for the advance readers copy.

Eli Rosen was living a happy life in Lublin, Poland with his wife and son. ln 1939, when the Nazi invade Poland, his world starts to fall apart. His family-owned brickyard business was overtaken by Max Poleski, an unscrupulous opportunist who had been a salesman for the company. Eli and his family are given a false sense of security as Max, who has endeared himself with the SS commanders, vows to help protect the Rosens from the Nazis.

In 1946, we find Eli and his son in the Föhrenwald Displaced Persons Camp having survived the Buchenwald concentration camp. He doesn’t know if his wife is still alive. The survivors are trying to recover and figure out where they will settle and rebuild their lives. Eli learns that Max is now selling illegal visas to the United States, which were highly coveted given the restrictive immigration quotas.

In the book’s third timeline, it is 1965 and Eli has just moved to Chicago in the Albany Park neighborhood where many European immigrants had settled. He tells his landlady that he works for the government yet she suspects he’s a spy.

Eli’s Promise brings an interesting perspective to the horrors of WWII. While it is one man’s story of survival, it is also the story of the despicable profiteering that took place during and after the war. And in the 1960s, during the Vietnam war, profiteering continued. Author Ronald H. Balson did an excellent job describing the early days of Nazi occupation when many Jews didn’t initially grasp the severity of what the Nazis were planning, feeling that life would soon go back to normal. But of course it never did. In the author’s Acknowledgments, Balson reminds us that all but two hundred of Lublin’s forty thousand Jews were murdered.

Eli’s Promise is well worth reading, as are all Balson’s books.

Many thanks to NetGalley, St. Martin’s Press and the author for the opportunity to read this compelling story in advance of its September 22, 2020 publication.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the chance to read this amazing book. Eli’s Promise is a masterful work of historical fiction spanning three eras—Nazi-occupied Poland, the American Zone of post-war Germany, and Chicago at the height of the Vietnam War, all tied together by a common thread. 1939: Eli Rosen lives with his wife Esther and their young son in the Polish town of Lublin, where his family owns a construction company. As a consequence of the Nazi occupation, Eli’s company is transferred to Maximilian Poleski—an unprincipled profiteer who peddles favors to Lublin’s subjugated residents, and who knows nothing at all of construction. An uneasy alliance is formed; Poleski will keep the Rosen family safe if Eli will manage the business. 1946: Eli resides with his son in a displaced persons camp in Allied occupied Germany hoping for a visa to America. His wife has been missing since the war. One man may know what has happened to her--Maximilian Poleski. 1965: Eli Rosen rents a room in Albany Park, Chicago. He is on a mission. With patience, cunning, and relentless focus, Eli navigates Chicago's unfamiliar streets and dangerous political backrooms, searching for the truth. Powerful and emotional, Eli’s Promise is a rich, rewarding novel of World War II and a husband’s quest for justice.

I found this book to be very well done, enough history of the terrible way Jews were treated under Hitler, without a lot of the gruesome details.

This is the story of Eli and his family, and their life during and after the occupation. It was well researched and factual, weaving history with fiction. It’s still a difficult subject, but I think it will stay with me for some time.

Thanks to the author, publisher and NetGalley for the opportunity to read and review this book, but my opinions are my own.

Advance Copy Received from the Publisher through NetGalley for my Honest Review.

Eli's Promise is WWII historical fiction, but it's so much more than that. Spanning three generations we see more of the before, after and much after than we do of the beginning. I always appreciate different angles to this era of Historical Fiction and Balson delivers through his depiction of Nazi occupation, Post war Germany in Displaced Persons Camps and the mid 60s in America. I found the Post War DP camps to be the most interesting part to me--maybe it's that I didn't know much about the visa restrictions or maybe it's the realness of reading about a TB pandemic and the mask precautions and unknowns that reminded me a lot of life in the current pandemic. The villain in this book is also much more than the traditional WWII villain we all know and I think Max as a character added depth to this book.

My main issue with this book was that there were so many different characters across the time periods that it was hard to keep track of everyone as the plot was coming together. The book alternates timelines as well, but in general it's done well to bring the climax and resolution together.

Balson is a talented historical fiction writer and fans of the genre and especially those that gravitate to WWII fiction will find something new in this book.

This was a wonderful book! I really enjoyed reading it. I look forward to more from this author. Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the advance copy.

This book was excellent! It should become a bestseller. I think it would be an excellent choice for any book club or as a school assignment for someone in High School. It is beautifully written. I was so impressed by the attention to detail and the intertwining of the story. Not your typical Holocaust book however. The misery of having the Nazis seize your business as well as just about everything you own was horrific enough but having to work for them every day as if all was well had to be agonizing. The way that the employee that the building company had taken good care of treated them was abhorrent. If I could, I would give this book 10 stars!
You will really enjoy the depth and breadth of this book! Go buy it now.
Thanks to the publisher and to Netgalley for allowing me to read this early and give you my honest feelings.

Interesting historical fiction novel. This book tells the story of the struggles of a Jewish man, Eli, and his family, as they try to survive during WWII. The title of the book references his decades-long pursuit to fulfill a longstanding promise. This novel jumps around in time from the start of war, end of the war, years immediately following the war as well as the 1960s. This style serves to pique curiosity as it takes time for the whole picture to truly become clear. This book was easy to read with an intriguing plot.

At times, I felt dialogue was a bit strange and more typical of current modern phrases of speech and not what I suspect was likely prevalent during the 1940s. I also felt like some parts dragged a little or became repetitive especially in the first half of the book.

Overall, I would recommend this book especially for those interested in historical fiction and WWII in general.

Note: I received an advance copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Thank you NetGalley for the ARC of this novel. While I enjoyed this book I found the plot a little to zig zagged for me. It jumped quickly between time periods...and left me wanting more of each part of the story.

A powerful story of three eras. from Natzi Occupied Poland to Allied occupied germany and the to chicago as eli searches for truth and justice. Great Writing!!

Thank you to the author, St. Martin's Press and NetGalley for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

This stirring and heartbreaking story is told in three different plot/timelines, that alternate irregularly. The first is set during WWII in Poland, focussing on a young family and the trauma they and their extended family went through during Hitler's campaign to annihilate the Jewish people, the second is set in the late 1940s, post-war in a camp in Germany for displaced persons, and the third in the early 1960s in Chicago. The common thread that is woven throughout the three narratives is a strong family dynamic, and the search of Eli, the protagonist of the story, for answers, justice and vengeance. I really liked this different approach to a WWII novel with a focus on the corruption that existed during the war years, and how that bled into life after the war.

3.5. I really wanted to like this book, as I liked his earlier novels, Once We Were Brothers, The Girl from Berlin, and Karolina's Twins. This historical novel also takes part in Poland during WWII, but also spanning a few decades after to the 1960s. It catalogues the struggle of those forced to leave their homes and enterprises by the Nazi regime, but also focuses on the relentless search of a man who lost his family, most notably his wife, and searched for her and/or answers for decades after in Poland, Germany and the United States by tracking the person who could provide him answers, a corrupt individual closely allied with various governmental entities worldwide. Among other things, the novel went into detail on the post World War II Germany refugee camps which I did find interesting. As compelling as his earlier novel was, this one I had trouble engaging with although this novel was very well researched with generally good character development. 3.5. I really wanted to like this book, as I liked his earlier novels, Once We Were Brothers, The Girl from Berlin, and Karolina's Twins. This historical novel also takes part in Poland during WWII, but also spanning a few decades after to the 1960s. It catalogues the struggle of those forced to leave their homes and enterprises by the Nazi regime, but also focuses on the relentless search of a man who lost his family, most notably his wife, and searched for her and/or answers for decades after in Poland, Germany and the United States by tracking the person who could provide him answers, a corrupt individual closely allied with various governmental entities worldwide. Among other things, the novel went into detail on the post World War II Germany refugee camps which I did find interesting. As compelling as his earlier novel was, this one I had trouble engaging with although this novel was very well researched with generally good character development. I received an advance copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an unbiased review.

I love WWII novels and I loved Eli's Promise. Eli's story about trying to find the collaborator after he survived the Holocaust was such an interesting take and perspective on things. I loved all of the different timelines, although it felt a bit jumbled sometimes, it was very interesting to see things from the 3 perspectives - trying to survive in occupied Poland, then in the American displacement camp after the war and then finally Chicago in the 60's. So many aspects of this story were just so incredibly heartbreaking, but as always, there was hope. To survive something so atrocious and still be able to build a life afterwards, is quite the accomplishment. Thank you to Netgalley and St. Martin's Press for the ARC.

I will read anything that this man writes! he is one of my 2 favorite authors. I did find this book a bit slower to get into but really liked it once i got into it..... i havent read anything about the living camps after the war, and where some of these people who were in concentration camps went and how it worked. R Balson makes his characters come alive and you just want to keep reading to find out what happens to them. A very good read , i recommend that you buy this book!!