PUBLISHERS BLURB
In 1904 Czarist Russia, Max, a four-year-old Jewish boy, witnesses his mother’s rape and murder by Russian soldiers. After the boy’s father extracts terrible revenge, father and son escape to New York and settle on the Lower East Side, a teeming melting pot of recent immigrants.
Max meets a young Polish girl, Sophie, and the two children become inseparable playmates. By the time they are teenagers, Max excels at both school and sports, Sophie has become a stunningly beautiful young woman, and friendship has grown into love. Their plans are shattered when Sophie is forced to marry a local crime boss and once again, Max must simply watch as the most important person in his life is taken from him. In response, he begins a ruthless and violent climb to the top of the New York underworld.
MY REVIEW
This is a tale of family, of immigration to America, the land of opportunity ….good and bad…
Max is just a small child, when Czarist Russians come to his village, and his mother hides him in a closet, but he hears her rape and murder…..
His father who had been secretly farming, (it was against the law for the Jewish), returns and kills the drunken soldiers and manages to escape with Max…finally reaching America.
Jonathan, is the son of a member of the IRA, who is to be hanged and tells Jonathan to leave for America, to make a new life.
Max and Jonathan’s meet in their journey building their new lives…..can their dreams come true?
There’s also Sophie, forced to marry a much older man, a crime boss, due to her father owing him money…..can she fulfil her dream of being an actress?
This is an epic family saga, with an organised crime element. Max is ruthless in his pursuit of power…will they all survive? An intriguing tale of family, loss, love, violence and power over generations….
Thank you to Anne Cater and Random Things Tours for the opportunity to participate in this blog tour and for the promotional materials and a free copy of the book and this is my honest, unbiased review.
you can buy a copy here
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Kenneth Bromberg grew up in the beach cities of Southern California with a passion for tennis, American history, and literature. He attended the University of California, Los Angeles, after which he worked for several years as a bartender. He eventually returned to UCLA to pursue an MBA and become a certified public accountant.
After retiring from accounting, Kenneth fulfilled a lifelong dream of becoming a novelist. His first work, American Dreams, is based upon stories told by his grandmother who immigrated to New York from a small Jewish village near Kiev in the first years of the 20th century. If you like Mario Puzo’s The Godfather and Ken Follett’s Century Trilogy, you will love this debut novel.
He lives in Santa Monica, California, with his wife of forty years.
FLAME TREE PRESS is the new fiction imprint of Flame Tree Publishing. Launching in 2018 the list brings together brilliant new authors and the more established; the award winners, and exciting, original voices.
