A Place to Hide is a heart warming story based on historical facts about some of the heroes that saved so many Jewish children and people during the Nazi invasion of Amsterdam during world war 2. This story told of the individuals that risked their lives to make a difference. The characters were incredibly well written and it was a very enjoyable read.

Thank you to Netgalley and to the publishers for allowing me to read this advanced copy.

A Place to Hide is the first book that I have read about WWII in the Netherlands. It was well written with great characters and a very compelling story. I most enjoyed the way that Balson weaved the history and the story together in a way that I wanted to keep reading long after the book was finished. I had the pleasure of listening to the audiobook and enjoying the e-book. The narrator's voice was easy to listen to. I will definitely read more books by Ronald H. Balson.

Thank you Net Galley, Ronald H. Balson, Macmillian Audio and St. Martin's Press for the opportunity to preview this novel. The ideas shared are my own. This novel is expected to be released on Sept. 17, 2024.

Teddy Hartigan, a diplomat for the State Department in Washington, D.C., has a comfortable life and position. In 1939, he unexpectedly finds himself reassigned to the American consulate in Amsterdam as consulate staff flee the country. His job is to process visas, and the number of applicants far exceeds the visas available. The demand for visas continues to increase as Hitler aggressively invades country after country in Europe and installs ever increasing restrictions and laws on the Jewish population.

Teddy is a man who wants to make a difference, and disappointing desperate people day after day begins to rip at his soul. He (and many others) always thought that the Netherlands were safe from invasion because of their long history of neutrality. When Hitler invades the Netherlands, it spurs him to become part of the underground groups trying to save as many people as they can.

Ronald H. Balson brings readers another remarkable and riveting WWII novel in A Place to Hide. The novel uses a unique method to tell the story, mixes past and present times, and puts fictional characters alongside real people. As always, Balson makes readers feel like they are there witnessing the events. His richly drawn and complex characters are a treasure. Though the book details the insidious changes and then horrific truths of war, this is also a story of the human spirit, of resilience, and of the power each of us has to make a difference in the world.

I have learned so much about WWII from this author's novels and I am grateful for that. It is a time in world history that needs to be understood and remembered so that it isn't repeated.

I will continue to read everything this author writes. I highly recommend this book to everyone. It's one you won't soon forget. A must read for those who enjoy historical fiction and/or are interested in WWII.

My thanks to St. Martin's Press for permitting me to read a DRC via NetGalley. Publication is 9/17/24. All thoughts and opinions expressed in this review are my own and are freely given.

Is there an author that you have tried to read multiple times, and it just does not work for you? I have read three books by Ronald Balson and I know I want to love the story. It sounds amazing, everyone loves it. I just cannot get into it. The story is just too unbelievable to me. You meet someone in a bakery, and in the next few weeks you are flying from Israel to Washington D.C. To meet with his grumpy friend who he knows will find your sister. You do not have much to go on, but it is just enough. I see red flags flying everywhere. I know people love him and I am not in the norm for not enjoying Balson's books. Which is what makes reading so much fun. There is always a book out there for anyone. For any taste, in any genre. That is why I love to read so much!

Ronald H. Balson is one of those authors that never cease to pull me in. His writing is emotional, makes you feel like you're sitting with the characters, and accurately portrays intense and large historical moments. I loved how this story was told — almost like a story within a story. Teddy was an incredible narrator and I enjoyed how he and Karyn interacted. It's very detailed and I know Balson included both real and fictional people in this narrative. This book was heartfelt, emotional, and an easy page-turner. I couldn't stop reading. I did think there would be a Balson-esque twist at the end, so I felt like I wanted more in a sense when I didn't get one. The ending felt a little abrupt as well, but other than that I did really enjoy this book. Thank you to St. Martin's Press for the e-ARC to read and review!

This remarkable and well researched novel takes place in the Netherlands before and during WWII. Several of the secondary characters are based on real people who risked their lives to save the Jewish people during the war. The author, who previously won the National Jewish Book Award, gives his readers an engrossing story but also provides interesting information on the belief of the local citizens who felt that since they were a neutral county, Germany would not invade them and if they did, the Dutch would be treated well.

Teddy is the son of a rich American family who get him a comfortable job with the US State Department with the thought that a job as a diplomat would give him a lot of leverage on higher level jobs in the future. Surprisingly he is re-assigned to the US Consulate in Amsterdam. His father thinks that it will be a good move for him but his fiancé refuses to accompany him to his new post and wants him to turn the job down. When he arrives at his new location he is assigned the job of processing Visa applications. The year is 1939 and refugees from the east - especially Poland and Austria - that have been invaded by the Germans are desperate to get to the safety of America. However, the US government has strict quotas about how many visas they will issue for each country and many people are put on a waiting list or turned away. The people in Amsterdam believe that their neutrality will keep them safe but when their government falls, they quickly have to deal with new laws that threaten the lives of their Jewish citizens. As life gets more difficult for the Dutch, they begin to form resistance groups to fight against their German invaders. Teddy quickly realizes that his position at the consulate can help save some of the Jewish children and gets involved in the resistance along with his girlfriend, Sarah. It's very dangerous for both of them since Sarah is Jewish. But the ability of saving even one life makes it important to both of them.

The entire story of Teddy's life is told during interviews with a Dutch reporter who is trying to find her long lost sister that she hadn't seen since the beginning of the war. Even though Teddy was 92 years old and in poor health, he wanted Kayn to write his history to share with his grandchildren who had no idea what he'd done during the war.

This was an inspiring story about people who risked their lives to help their neighbors. It would have been very easy for Teddy to return to the US when the consulate closed but he was brave enough to stay and try to help other people. If you read WWII fiction, this is another book that you don't want to miss.

“A Place to Hide” is the story of Teddy Hartigan who was transferred to the US consulates office in Amsterdam just as tensions in Europe were rising. As Hitler’s control expands and the Anti-Semitic edicts continue, the US enters the war, and news of death camps surfaces, Teddy becomes more involved with the resistance and helping to save the Jewish People of the Netherlands.

I love historical fiction mostly because at the end of a book, I have typically learned something new. But I also love historical fiction because it brings history alive, placing you right there is the thick of it. The balance of the two is what, for me, makes a great book. Unfortunately, I felt the balance was off in this one. This one had a lot of historical facts that kept this story moving forward, but the heart and soul of the story didn’t actually start until about 60-70% of the way through. While some of the set up was needed, some of the beginning felt repetitive and slow. There were a lot of characters that were briefly a large part of the story, but they suddenly disappeared and we never brought up again. I questioned why half of them were included at all. I also struggled with the structure of the story which was told through the eyes of a journalist who was documenting Teddy’s memoir. The secondary story line of the journalist seemed like an afterthought and was not developed at all. I would have loved to have seen a different structure such as dual timeline used to capture and highlight both stories. As a disclaimer, I did read this as an ARC and some of these issues might have been resolved by final publishing. Despite all the issues, the heart of the story and premise of the book was great and I felt worth the read, but I also feel like it could have been so much better.

3.75 Amsterdam WWII Stars

This is a historical fiction story set in Amsterdam during WWII. The setting makes me think of Anne Frank, and the book references the resistance seeking out places to hide Jewish families.

The story centers around Teddy, who is from a prominent DC family devoted to government work. He was working a job in the basement of the State Department when he was suddenly called up for a position in Amsterdam. He initially turns it down because he and his girlfriend have starring roles in a local musical.

I had somewhat forgotten how much US isolationism was going on at this time and how many people did not want to get involved in affairs in faraway Europe. Thoughts of war were brewing, and several people, including Teddy's girlfriend, tried to talk Teddy out of going.

He does oversee the processing of visa applications at the U.S. Consulate. It’s mostly fruitless, as the US quotas have been filled, but at least people can go on a waitlist and feel like they are trying to feel Europe.

Holland hopes they will be spared as the Germans march into several other countries. It’s not meant to be, though, and soon, the Jewish population is under harsh rules.

Teddy finds a new girlfriend, and they take in an abandoned toddler. Teddy realizes that he can play a key role in helping Jewish people hide and helping small children escape through an Amsterdam nursery school.

While Teddy’s story is fiction, hundreds of Jewish children were smuggled out to safety. I enjoyed this one, getting insight into being an American diplomat during the war.

A Place to Hide by Ronald H Balson is another of his riveting Holocaust novels. This one highlights some of the heroes, some fictional, some not, who rescued hundreds of children before they were sent to death camps. Henriette Pimentel, the founder and inspiration behind on of the most famous Dutch creches (baby and toddler care); Walter Suskind, the Jewish manager of a theatre in Amsterdam who deceived the Nazis into sending children to the creche and then erasing them from the rolls before they were returned to board trains; and Johan van Hulst, the director of a teacher training college whose students helped transfer the young children into the waiting arms of their rescuers. The fictional Teddy Hartigan, at this point 92 years old, is approached, through a friend, to help a Jewish woman find her origins. He agrees. In return she will help him write his memories for his grandchildren and great-grandchildren. It was a moving story of the resistance. Teddy had married Sara, a young Jewish woman, so they could adopt a Jewish orphan. His father-in-law, Saul predicted everything that happened in the Netherlands regarding the Nazis. Highly respected, he was always there to help.

Balson doesn’t write concentration camp stories. He writes stories of after the concentration camp, or others outside the camps. Just as poignant, just as important. He researches thoroughly and writes openly and fluidly. Very engaging. I always look forward to his books. In this one he delineated the slow maneuvering of Jews toward “the final solution.” The step-by-step chiseling away of their rights until they were rounded up to be killed. It was a terrifying journey to witness. Thanks Ronald H Balson for writing these novels.

I was invited to read A Place to Hide by St Martin’s Press. All thoughts and opinions are mine. #Netgalley #StMartinsPress #RonaldHBalson #APlaceToHide

A Place to Hide is the remarkable new novel by Ronald H. Balson. The plot is based on a true story and begins in Tel Aviv in 2002. A chance meeting between Karyn and Burt leads Karyn to reveal that she was a hidden Dutch child during WWII. She still yearns for information about the sister she was separated from. Burt’s elderly cousin Teddy worked in Amsterdam during the war and has contacts there. Karyn, a former journalist, travels to Washington to seek Teddy’s help in return for documenting his war time story. Balson’s plot switches seamlessly between Teddy’s past and present. Teddy is not in great health.

Theodore “Teddy” Hartigan is the scion of a wealthy and well-connected D.C. family. Teddy leaves his cushy position in the State Department in 1938 when he is re-assigned to the U.S. Consulate in Amsterdam to replace fleeing staff. His job is to process Visa applications when there are no Visa’s available. Teddy wants to help all the desperate people, but his hands are tied.

Teddy falls in love with Sara, a Jewish girl from the nearby town of Utrecht. Sara’s father is head of the history department at the university there. He understands the Nazi threat and solicits Teddy’s help to insure his daughter’s future. Teddy and Sara marry and adopt a little girl who has been abandoned, for her own safety, at a pre-school in Amsterdam. When the consulate is permanently closed Teddy is asked to stay on and to work undercover with Sara’s father. Teddy becomes part of the resistance movement. Jewish families are sequestered in Amsterdam and awaiting transport to concentration camps. Parents are desperate to save their children, and Teddy conceives a plan to help as many of them as possible. Could these children be adopted by gentile families? Balson’s writing puts this extraordinary story where it belongs- available for everyone to read and remember.

Ronald H. Balson can always be counted on for an interesting Holocaust novel, each with a different story to tell. In the earlier Defending Britta Stein (2021), an elderly Danish American woman tells a convoluted story of life in Denmark to explain why she recently painted graffiti on the exterior wall of a Chicago restaurant, charging the owner with being a Nazi collaborator among other things. Somewhat similarly, in A Place to Hide, retirement home resident Teddy Hartigan narrates his story of work in U.S. Consulate, Amsterdam prior to the U.S. entry into the war and the changes in his life when he opted to remain in Amsterdam after the attack on Pearl Harbor and the Consulate’s closing.
While Britta told her story to a lawyer, Teddy tells his story to Karyn Sachnoff, a war orphan seeking the sister from whom she was separated during the war. In exchange for contacting old acquaintances who might be able to help Karyn find her sister, Teddy insists on Karyn’s writing his war experiences, which he has never been able to share orally with his grandchildren, now in their thirties.

Teddy’s account begins in late summer 1938, shortly before he is offered the job in the U.S. Consulate, a posting that already looks dangerous but that he cannot turn down. As Teddy narrates his experiences to Karyn over a period of days, including time in the hospital, readers learn the history of WWII as it affected the consulate and the Dutch people, both Jewish and non-Jewish. While there is much to learn that will hold most readers’ attention, Teddy’s long monologues fill most of the story, including some details of consular life and more of his personal life after falling in love with a Dutch Jewish woman. However, by far the largest part of the narrative is war history filled with names, events, and precise dates and statistics. Although the mutual acquaintance who introduces Karyn to Teddy once comments on Teddy’s photographic memory, Teddy’s account lacked credibility, coming as it does from a 92-year-old reporting events that took place more than sixty years earlier. Although Teddy provides a valuable history of the changing war and its affects on the Netherlands, the narration frequently reads like a history book.

Furthermore, I found myself wondering about the title for much of the book. Not until roughly 85% of the way through Teddy’s narrative does he reach the part of the story the title leads readers to expect.

Does Balson plan a sequel? If so, I will read it. He left me with many questions and with a desire to know what happens next.

Thanks to NetGalley and to St. Martin’s Press for an advance reader copy.
3.5/5 stars

As a reader of much historical fiction about the Holocaust, I’m recommending ‘A Place to Hide’ by Ronald H. Balson.
It’s an unusual format in that the main character, Teddy Hartigan, now in his 90s and nearing the end of his life, has decided to tell the story of when he was both a consular official and undercover spy for the United States in Amsterdam during 1941-43. He has found someone to write that story based on his dictations. This involves not only his personal recollections, but much factual material. There is also a secondary storyline involving his developing friendship with his ghostwriter and her past connection to this period.
Teddy and many characters are fictional, however all of the historical figures are not. The perspective on the US isolationist policy of the period was accurate, although very disturbing. The author’s thorough research gives the reader the full story of the Nazi takeover of Holland portrayed in chronological order and considerable detail. It filled in many gaps in my prior knowledge and I learned about three important Dutch individuals famous for saving Jews, particularly children, from deportation and certain death.
Thank you to the author, the publisher St. Martin’s Press, and NetGalley for the opportunity to read and review and ARC.

A fresh take on the WW2 historical fiction. This one takes a new approach that I haven't seen. It was very detailed and well researched.

To tell the tale of people who shape history is often a difficult thing to manage, especially in a fictional setting. Balson does a great job of creating these characters and giving them life. Any historical fiction lover would appreciate the storytelling here; I would recommend this book to my audience.

Karyn is looking for her lost sister, and she finds herself writing Teddy's story of his time abroad during the Nazi invasion in Amsterdam. I was immediately immersed in Teddy's time working at the US Consulate in Amsterdam and how his position changed to spy once Nazi invaded Amsterdam and began targeting the Jewish community. The risk that many people took to save the lives of young children and babies from their death was eye opening. I had no idea that this happened. The narrator, Fred Berman does a wonderful job portraying Teddy, Karyn, and many of the other characters that appear in the book. The tones and inflections were done well and kept me engaged till the very end. If I could give this book 10 stars, I would.

Teddy’s Decision

Ted Hartigan had a good life with a job with the government and a fiancée. However, his job wasn’t challenging enough and he wanted to do something more. When the job came up to be the job comes open to work in the U.S. consulant in Amsterdam he jumps at the chance, even though his fiancée is not keen on the idea.

Once Ted starts working in Amsterdam, his fiancée finds someone else and then Ted meets sara and he knows he has found his soulmate.

When Hitler starts taking over countries and Ted hears of the atrocities the Nazi’s are forcing on people he is horrified. He sees long lines at the consulate and he can do nothing to help as the U.S. Immigrant quota is pages and thousands of people already on the waiting list. He wonders what can he do to help.

This is when Ted joins the resistance and uses his job to help those in need as best he can. He often feels helpless and frustrated with the system.
I can imagine long lines of people, long hours at the consulate and knowing his hands are tied would lead anyone to be frustrated and saddened.

I liked the story of Ted and Sara and little Katy the orphan girl. It is a sad story, but a good story. It was sad that our country was not sympathetic to the Jewish people when Hitler was murdering them, and now everyone and anyone can come to the U.S. and just walk across the border. It was a sad time then and it is a sad time now.

I like the compassion that Ted had for the people coming to the consulate and for the orphans and the children that Sara and Ted saved that would have perished with their parents on the death trains and in the Nazi death camps. They risked their lives to save innocent children and this was very courageous.

It was a good story and the characters were believable and true to life. They were brave and courageous. I enjoyed reading this story and I would recommend it .

I received a copy of the book for free to read. The review is my own.

This was a well written book. I can’t say it was one of my favorites. I think I’ve read just too many of these same type of books and none of them really wow me anymore. Others will surely enjoy reading it

Rating: 4/5 Stars
Pub Date: 9/17
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A Place to Hide is a historical fiction that is jam packed with information about the beginning of the war that I had absolutely no idea about. I love how it started as a simple story about a woman taking her grandaughter to the store which led to her looking for her sister and eventually meeting Ted.
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Both Ted and Karyn were lovely characters; Ted with his grumpy attitude and Karyn with the patience of a saint. I felt like I knew all of the characters in Ted’s story, everyone was so well written.
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This story is told from Ted telling Karyn about the War and his experiences in order to have a biography made for his family. His story was so raw and emotional and just so beautiful I couldn’t help but want to continue. I had a hard time putting this one down. This story has the perfect-ace for such a serious topic. I loved this book.
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I listened to this one via audiobook. Fred Berman was the perfect choice to tell Teddy’s story. I felt like I was Karyn being told this story first hand. I absolutely loved this narration. Highly recommend!!
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To all of my historical fiction fans - be sure to check this one out! Huge thank you to NetGalley, MacMillan Audio, St. Martins Press and Ronald H. Balson for the ALC and eARC in exchange for my honest review.

Historical fiction at its best. I’ve read a lot of ww2 historical fiction this year & this story is by far one of the best written. If I could give it more than 5 stars, I would.

Everytime I read about the horrible things that happened during world war 2 I learn new things. Most of the time they are heartbreaking and unbelievable because of their cruelty.

I was thankful there was some good things to learn from this story and that some of the places referenced are now holocaust museums. I have revealed to the holocaust museum in Washington DC and can speak to the importance of making sure that these atrocities and major parts of history are never ever forgotten.

I was moved by this story and of course a complete puddle multiple times throughout reading this amazing book.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read this amazing arc in exchange for my honest review.

A Place to Hide by Ronald H. Balson is a poignant story about courage, perseverance, compassion and hope in one of the darkest times in history, World War II. Thirsty for power, Hitler forcibly brutalizes much of the world, including the neutral Netherlands. During the war children were orphaned and often killed. This is the story about those who risked their lives to find innocent Jewish children homes in Christian households.

Theodore (Teddy) Hartigan worked for the State Department in Amsterdam before getting a huge promotion. He left everything and everyone to pursue his job. But he discovered his high-ranking job placed him in good stead for helping many desperate people.

Decades later, journalist Karyn has given up trying to find her sister, Annie. Their family was separated during the war and Annie is all Karyn has left...if she's alive. Through an acquaintance, Karyn meets Teddy who in his 90s is astute and sharp as a tack. They strike a mutually beneficial deal. Karyn will write Teddy's story for his family and in turn Teddy will search for Annie. Not only do they discover more about their personal backgrounds but also themselves.

The dual timeline story is thoughtfully told with sensitivity and grace. As an avid reader of World War II Nonfiction and Fiction, I was happy to add this compelling book to my repertoire. Do be sure to read Balson's notes. He is an auto read for me. It seems he pours his heart into his words.

My sincere thank you to St. Martin's Press and NetGalley for providing me with an early digital copy of this engrossing novel.