PROMISED LAND
"Promised Land is a great sweeping epic, reminiscent of Leon Uris’ Exodus; a moving story of triumph and tragedy, new love and historic hate, expertly told by a cast of unforgettable characters. Fletcher’s writing is superb and rises to the level of importance that this story demands and deserves. Historical novels don’t get much better than Promised Land." — Nelson DeMille, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Cuban Affair
Promised Land is a sweeping saga of two brothers and the woman they love, a devastating love triangle set to the tumultuous founding of Israel.
The story begins when fourteen-year-old Peter is sent west to America to escape the growing horror of Nazi Germany. But his younger brother Arie and their entire family are sent east, to the Nazi death camps. Only Arie returns.
The brothers reunite in the new Jewish state where they both fall in love with Tamara, a lonely Jewish refugee from Cairo. Over two decades their intrigues and jealousies threaten to tear their new lives apart.
Arie becomes a businessman and one of the richest men in Israel. Peter becomes a top Mossad agent heading some of Israel’s most vital espionage operations. One brother builds Israel, the other protects it.
In this epic novel, the difficult yet rich lives of Peter, Arie and Tamara parallel the extraordinary obstacles that young Israel faced.
Promised Land is at once the gripping tale of a struggling family and a struggling nation.
REVIEWS
Award-winning journalist and novelist Fletcher crafts a compelling historical novel that is sexy, suspenseful, and successfully mixes humor and high drama. Although the cast of characters is large, their names serve as chapter titles to help readers follow each twist and turn of this epic story. A lovely surprise at the end makes the whole book worthwhile, as if it wasn’t already fascinating enough. VERDICT Engrossing for historical fiction fans, especially those drawn to the dramatic events of the mid-20th century.
Promised Land is a sweeping novel of personal and national evolution within Israel as it attempts to forge its respectable, permanent place in the local, national and international communities. Readers will immediately become engaged in this memorable, well-crafted work of historical fiction.
"This historical family saga, first of a planned trilogy, invites inevitable comparison with Leon Uris’ Exodus, the action picking up in 1950, directly after the historical events Uris depicts. Fletcher, however, focuses more on characters than on Israel’s history as the protagonists’ personal perspectives bring the interwar period (between WWII and the Six-Day War) to life. Brothers Peter and Arie, in love with the same woman, can be seen to represent Israel’s political, religious, and social entities vying for dominance. Holocaust survivor Arie is a keenly competitive businessman with questionable morality, and family man Peter, a Mossad agent, battles conflicted motivations. Israel’s struggles shape their lives: revenge, distrust, prejudice, and resentment that sometimes quell hope and their fighting spirit. Readers unfamiliar with Israeli and Palestinian history may struggle with factions, battles, and names, but the author’s focus on the characters keeps the action alive for those who love a good family saga. Fletcher, well known for his National Jewish Book Award–winning Walking Israel (2010), and for his character-driven novels, including Jacob’s Oath (2013), knows his subject and dramatizes it to great effect.”
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