Eli’s Promise was a great read. I loved how it told the story over three different time periods and how it all comes together in the end. You get the perspective before and during the war in Poland, after the war, and the 20 years later in America. The story of Eli and his family is a sad one, but not an uncommon one for Jews during the war. I would definitely recommend this for anyone who enjoys historical fiction.

This is a great choice book for my unit on the holocaust. My students are always looking for additional titles, especially contemporary titles that I speak to the horrors.of the holocaust.

I am very interested in the history of the Jewish people, and so I wanted to like this book very much. However, it did not deliver at all. This book is lacking depth and it feels like it would be much better suited for Middle and Junior high school level. The narration from the first person only adds to the dullness. It was a long and laboriuos read. Perhaps other books by this author are a little better.

Eli's Promise follow Eli Rosen from mid WWII up through the 60's as he seeks to catch a Nazi Collaborator who he had trusted to protect his family during the war. This book was really good. I enjoyed the fact that it didn't rest in the intensity of WWII but showed the after effects and the lives of people who did survive. It starts in Poland but ends up in the United States. The book was well written and interesting. It felt fresh with the plot, allowing the reader to follow Eli from the early 40's through the late 60's. Highly recommend.

A novel that may prove more than a little unnerving to many readers. It's a well written account of a period in history in which the entire world was ushered into a second world war just 20 short years after the ending of the first round. Adolf Hitler devised the persecution of distinct groups of people as scapegoats for his nation to focus on in order to gear up to fighting a war. Hitler selected Jews, Gypsies and even Catholics to focus hatred on and made genocide a norm as a means of getting rid of his devised enemies.
The book focuses on three periods in the life of Eli Rosen in order to tell the story. The first segment is the time that war and occupation were initiated, the second in a period just after the war and a great many displaced persons were living in camps while awaiting possible reconciliation with relatives, and the third twenty years after the war's end and occurring in Chicago, U.S.A.
Eli Rosen grew up and lives in the Polish town of Lublin. His family founded a successful brickyard which he manages up to the time that the Nazis conquered Poland and appropriated whatever they wanted in the country. He is thrown from a comfortable position as owner-manager of a good business to employee of a man that was his salesman until the Nazi governor of the area took over the ownership of the business. Eli tries to protect his family by any means from the excesses of the occupational government and is forced to enter into a relationship with Maximilian Poleski his ex salesman and now appointed as agent of the Nazis for the brick yard. Eli's wife Esther is conscripted to work in a sewing factory working on goods for the German army and forced to come in daily for nine or more hours each time. His young son continues in school but only because Eli has made that a condition for continuing to manage the yard giving Poleski the entire credit for doing that.
The second section of the novel describes the plight of the displaced persons after the war is over. They are thrown together in camps; all seeking visas for other countries in order to try and regain some semblance of normality for the rest of their lives. Mr Balson makes the point that many countries, including the United States set up low and arbitrary quotas for the refugees when they had the room and the need in the light of economies returning to normal as hostilities cease. Maximilian Poleski emerges as a fixer - a man with the contacts and influence to sell visas to people with the money to pay him and allow them to bypass the normal sequence of time needed to get a visa.
The climax of the story occurs in the United States in the city of Chicago. Eli Rosen comes to the area and obtains an apartment. His neighbors see him as a man with some means as all he seems to be doing is staying around the apartment. He becomes friendly with some people in the building he is living in. The reason he is in Chicago is explained and his actions become logical. The ending of the novel provides something unexpected for the reader. It is not just a change from the expected but a means of keeping the key persona in the book as logical as the author obviously intended to make them.
Ronald Balson pulls no punches with his descriptions of the horrors visited on ordinary people by an invading army, and than their being shunted off to a side by many countries that want the war to just disappear. His story is a five star version of a period of history that proved a horror for those living in it.

Another interesting aspect of WWII. This time we also explore corruption in Chicago as we follow the characters from Poland, to France and then to the US. I really enjoy meeting his characters and learning about different perspectives of Jewish plight. Not very thought provoking, but still an enjoyable read. Thank you NetGalley for the ARC.

What an amazingly wonderful historical fiction. I thought I was sick of WWII novels then came Eli's Promise. Eli fights long and hard through decades searching for his family. The book is beautifully written, the characters , you feel their pain and suffering. A heartwrenching emotional journey you won't want to put down. Definitely will be reading the rest of Mr. Batson's books. What a way with a story he has!

I love Ronald Balson historical fiction! Eli's Promise is a very good book and I totally enjoyed reading it. I will recommend it to the patrons at the library. Love It

A heart wrenching novel a book of the horrors of the Holocaust.We live it through the suffering of the Rosen fAmily a story you will not be able to forget,#netgalley#st.martinsbooks

this was a first I've read from Ronald Balson, thanks to NetGalley for the opportunity to read this ARC
I had a really hard time getting into the novel, it did not capture my attention, I found the story did not have a lot of depth in the beginning, I could not bring myself to finish the story. I didn't like the writing style or how the story was being told..
This story is about a family during WW II and what they endured when their country was invaded and taken over by the Germans.

Thanks to netgalley and the publisher for an advanced copy of this book.

Gosh, was it hard to put this book down once you understood who the characters were and the different time periods that they were portrayed in.

The story is especially moving and takes the reader on an emotional journey!

Spoilers: Surely many have it right from the French Revolutionaries to the Klingon Empire that revenge is really a dish best served cold. Though sometimes that cold dish is not served by choice. Sometimes the recipient of that revenge slips away leaving the accusor to spend many years, even decades, of hunting down the person that they hold responsible.

The cold dish of revenge and belated justice is the main theme behind Ronald H. Balson's Eli's Promise, a tense, gripping, andstrong novel. It takes the Reader from 1940's Poland to 1960's Chicago covering twenty-five years, a Polish town, a temporary displaced person's camp, various American businesses and high rises, and two wars before said justice and revenge are finally carried out.

Eli Rosen is a construction worker in Lublin, Poland when the Nazis come blasting their way in. Suddenly, the life he knows is turned around on its head. Jews are moved to a ghetto. Women like his wife are forced to work as seamstresses at a factory. Place names are changed to reflect the new order. Then many people disappear under mysterious circumstances and certain words like "resettlement", "special handling", and "labor camps" carry extremely ominous overtones.

Eli's family including his wife, Esther, father, Jacob, and son, Isaak are under the dubious protection of one Maximilian Poleski, an opportunist and war profiteer. He claims to protect the Rosen Family but only so they serve his purpose. Eli and his brother work under his now proprietorship. Max makes arrangements for favors such as Esther to work in the factory in exchange for money and obtainining young girls. If possible, Maximilian is less likeable than the Nazis. He is a character who is seemingly charming but is really nothing more than a snake looking out for number one.
Eli and his family reluctantly work and barely survive under Maximilian's so-called protection until Eli is temporarily separated from his family. He returns to find his father beaten and his wife and son missing. He is eventually reunited with Isaak but Esther remains missing. It doesn't take much for Eli to realize that Maximilian arranged Esther's departure and even though Eli and Isaak are put into a concentration camp until the end of the war and then placed in a temporary holding place for displaced persons afterwards, Eli never lets go of his desire to reunite with Esther and get retribution towards the man that he considers the author of his misery: Maximilian.

Eli is an extremely heroic character. The more unlikeable that Maximilian is, the more we are rooting for Eli to take him down. We are also rooting for Eli to find his own place and to get his life back together. In the DP camp, Eli shows leadership capabilities by helping the other refugees, ultimately becoming the leader of their community. He is also a devoted single father to Isaak. He soothes the boy's fears, nurses him through Illness, encourages his talents in music and athletics, and tries to heal his trauma. Even though Eli makes a female friend, Esther is not far from his mind. When by chance, he learns that Maximilian is not only still around but up to his old tricks by selling forged U.S. visas, Eli is determined to confront his old foe and find out the truth of Esther's whereabouts.

The plot takes a unique twist into the 1960's just as America's involvement in the Vietnam War begins to escalate. Mimi, an intrepid young journalist from Chicago becomes curious about her suave new boarder, guess who, Eli Rosen. Turns out Eli now works for the State Department and is investigating a corrupt Congressman who also happens to be the father of Mimi's best friend, Christine. Even though this case is half a world and twenty five years away, it puts Eli right in the path of his old arch enemy. The private war between two men that represented the opposite sides of the Holocaust becomes a very public war when it also involves others including Mimi, Christine, their friends and family, and eventually the United States government.

Eli's Promise is a nail biting suspenseful novel as Eli strives to capture Maximilian and or learn the truth only for him to slither away because of his contacts, influence, and charm. It becomes a victorious climax when the two are reunited once more and Maximilian is deprived of any means of escape and Eli finally is able to get justice rained down on the slime.

Eli's Promise is the kind of book that shows that revenge and justice can take awhile, but when they do, they are that much sweeter.

I have read all of Ronald Balson's books and consider myself a huge fan. Historical fiction is a genre I have come to love because if it is well researched, the story being told is woven into the true background of a time period. That is one thing I love about Ron Balson. His exceptional research allows him to create stories with characters so real and details so moving that the reader gets authentic pictures of what life was like. In Eli's Promise Balson shows us life before, during and mainly after WWII. Even though it is a work of historical fiction, the attention to detail, care and thoughtfulness Balson put into this book (as well as ALL of his other works) makes it easy for the reader to get a glimpse of and feel the unimaginable horrors the people who actually went though it had to live with. I feel Ronald Balson's books are gifts to readers and Eli's Promise is every bit as good as his other works.

The story begins in a Jewish refugee camp in Europe. Through flashbacks we learn about Eli and his family and what happened to them during the war. Eli is a leader in the refugee camp and he tries to help in the arrest of a black marketeer who is selling visas to America. The visas are real and the people who should be receiving them are forced to wait longer when they are sold illegally. Eli is surprised to discover that a person who betrayed his family to the Nazis is alive and involved in the illegal activity. Flash forward to the U.S. in the 1960s. Eli now works for the FBI and he is still fighting corruption and seeking to bring the same criminal to justice. When two young people he is acquainted with are murdered, he enlists the help of their young friend to investigate the murder and the organized crime ring involving a government official.

This novel kept my attention and I thought it was Ok. I liked the details of the refugee camp experience and the information about the policies of governments regarding displaced Jews. The jump forward to the U.S. in the 1960s seemed weak in some way in my opinion. I can't remember the name of the girl who helps Eli catch Maximillian, but her character just seemed weakly developed. This reader found the plot weak and not believable in that part of the novel.

Thanks to NetGalley for the advanced copy. This is a heartbreaking, emotional book told in three parts. The first is when Hitler started his brutal war/annihilation of the Jews and is a detailed look at a young family and the trauma done to them, their experiences with simply trying to be a human in a world that treated them as nothing more then a pest to be hunted. The second part is in the late 40’s, after the camp survivors have been rescued and misplaced throughout several US temporary camps, most of them solely wanting to get US visas to try and start anew. The third part is an America (Chicago) in the 60’s. The continuing person/theme in all stories is Max and the story revolves around the main character, Eli, and his promise to find vengeance, justice and answers.
There are similarities to his other book, Once we were brothers, (which I liked better)-anger and what it costs you, forgiveness, understanding, trauma, etc. This is no exception to the beautiful job Balson does with one of the most important and horrifying subjects of our history..he writes with detail, emotion, poetry, and depth that sucks you in and leaves you heartbroken but hopeful, all while learning.
“Good will always prevail over evil-we must believe that or there is no purpose in the universe.”

Eli's Promise
A Novel
by Ronald H. Balson
St. Martin's Press
You Like Them
Historical Fiction
Pub Date 22 Sep 2020 | Archive Date 06 Oct 2020

Another great read from Ronald H. Balson. Every book I've read of his is truly a great historical fiction novel.
Thanks to Net Galley and St. Martin's Press for the ARC.
Wonderful read that I will recommend to our patrons.

Eli's Promise was an amazing read!

The book follows a Polish Jew, Eli, and his family as they confront the Nazi invasion of their home town, family separation, and the terror of the labor camps. It also follows Maximilian, a hustler who moves between befriending the Nazi leadership and robbing the Jews of their cash and possessions with his empty promises of protection.

Eli's promise is to bring slippery Maximiian to justice. The author allows us to follow Eli through the displacement camps and eventually to his new home in Chicago on his quest to fulfill his promise.

This is a book that will keep you saying, "Just one more chapter!".

Eli’s Promise is a historical. novel which has it’s settings in Lublin, Poland during the Nazi era in the early 1940’s , Fohrenwald, a DP camp, in postwar Bavaria Germany 1945-47, and Chicago during the Vietnam War. Even though it is a story of corruption and wartime profiteering, there is a beautiful love story between two people caught in the horrors of Hitler’s Germany. Fabulous research gives you a glimpse of Lublin, once one of the largest centers of Jewish life in Poland. You feel like you are living with the Rosen’s every day and can deeply feel their suffering. You also get a realistic glimpse into life after the war in a displaced person’s camp...the heartache in waiting for a visa and how the residents make their own joy and happiness. Even though there was such heartache, in the end there is some redemption and joy and you realize there are so many good people in the world.

Received from Net Gallery to read for a honest review of this, "Eli's Promise"! First time I have read a book from Ronald H. Balson. WWII setting where family ends up in a displacement camp,looking for his wife that has disappeared and his whole life that he knew is gone as is his busness. The historical setting as it is you can tell so much research went into this book. The different characters that are introduced in this story,you will get to know emotionally and the emotions that are in this story comes across so well You are put into this storytelling so well,you feel like you are b there! Grab some tissues for such a fantastic look into how it was way back when and hopefully never will be again! I will read more of this author's work!

The premise of this book was great, but I don't think the ideas were flushed out enough. It seemed to jump back and forth in time too much. I would love to see further development in this novel, and see how Eli's full story plays out. I would give it 2.5 out of 5 stars.