What I Promise You by Liz Tolsma Review

 Happy Wednesday Friends :)

I pray today finds you all doing well, and I'm so thankful you've taken the time to join me today here on The Preppy Book Princess for another book review.

How has your reading been going for 2024? I've definitely already had my ups and downs for this year's reading challenge, as I've already had both five star and one star reads.

Hopefully the rest of the year will contain more five stars and less one stars but we will have to see how things go from here.

Today's review is for an upcoming Christian historical title, and I'm looking forward to sharing my thoughts about this one with you all.

I hope you'll all join me down below for today's full review.

What I Promise You by Liz Tolsma:

Source: Publisher via NetGalley

Publisher: Barbour

Publication Date: January 30th, 2024

Genre: Christian Fiction/Historical Fiction/World War Two Fiction/Dual Timeline

Series: Echoes of the Past 

Synopsis:

A family forever changed by the tragedies of WWII.

Hannah Elfenbein, a young, pregnant Jewish woman, is arrested in 1942 and sent to the Camp de Rivesaltes transit camp in Southwest France. Drawn to helping other young women escape, she seeks refuge for herself and others at a maternity hospital. But nothing is simple in occupied France, and she finds herself doing the unimaginable to save one precious life.

Eighty years later, Caitlyn Laurant takes a break from training to be a missionary nurse in Spain to visit nearby France, hoping to find her grandfather’s birthplace. But what she uncovers are secrets long buried by WWII atrocities.

(synopsis from goodreads)

My Review:

Liz Tolsma has crafted a heart wrenching tale of love, loss and family secrets that spans through three different time periods of 1942, 1955, and 2022. While I haven't read too many of this author's books in the past, I have enjoyed the ones I did, and I was looking forward to trying another of her books, especially since the synopsis sounded intriguing.

In 1942, we follow a young Jewish woman who has recently been sent to a transit camp with her husband. Several months pregnant, she doesn't understand why God would allow this to happen to His people. When she's given the chance to escape the camp and make her temporary home at a women's maternity hospital, she's hesitant to leave her beloved husband. However, there's more to come her way than she could ever have imagined in her worst nightmares, and soon she's doing everything she can to give back to the cause that's helped her and so many others. What happens at the maternity hospital will have a life changing impact, and she continues to question where God is amidst life's never ending tragedies?

In 1955, we're not give much to go on at the start, but the readers knows they're following the narrator thirteen years after the devastating tragedies that occured at the maternity hospital, and watching the way the grief associated with it has shaped so many lives.

In 2022, a young woman named Caitlyn is dealing with the devastating loss of her best friend, while trying to enter the mission field as nurse because it was said friend's dream. When the chance arises to find out more of her grandfather's family history, she jumps at the chance. Only she seems to find more questions than answers on her quest to finally be able to give her beloved grandfather the information he's desperately wanting.

The three storylines weave together into an emotional and heartfelt rollercoaster as the protagonists learn firsthand the horrible effect that such a horrific time in history has had on anyone who came into contact with it. The author did a wonderful job of portraying the grieving process both realistically and authentically, and I found my heart breaking for each of these women as secrets are revealed and healing seems impossible. Thankfully what's impossible for us is always possible for Him, and I loved how the faith element ends up playing such a large part of the story towards the end.

All in all, this was definitely an interesting read with a heartfelt storyline, but I wouldn't say it's a new favorite for me. I found the story really dragged at the start, and it took me quite awhile to get into it. I also felt there was a lot of build up towards the big family secrets, but the ending felt anticlimactic and extremely rushed. I wish there had been a bit more to it, as it ended up feeling almost incomplete.

Still a beautiful historical fiction that I would recommend to anyone who enjoys faith based reads set during World War Two, but I don't see it being a reread for me in the future.

Final Rating: 3/5.

Thanks so much to Barbour for allowing me to read and review this one!

I voluntarily read and reviewed a complimentary advance reader copy of this novel from the publisher (Barbour) via NetGalley. I was not required to give a positive review. All thoughts and opinions are my own, and this is my honest review.

Thanks so much for reading guys! Have a great rest of your day :)