Protecting Paige by Deby Eisenberg

BOOK INFORMATION

Genre: Historical fiction, Jewish literature

• File Size: 1605 KB
• Print Length: 355 pages
• Publisher: Studio House Literary (January 1, 2016)
• Publication Date: January 1, 2016
• Sold by: Amazon Digital Services LLC
• Language: English
• ASIN: B01A3CBYCW

Synopsis: From the author of the Book Club favorite, Pictures of the Past, comes another compelling, multi-layered novel, ripe with the twists and turns of the best historical fiction. 

It is the still innocent year of 1962, and twelve-year-old Paige Noble awakens in a hospital room in Chicago. She has no memory of the random act of gang violence that has left her injured and orphaned. As she waits for her famous uncle to come for her, Paige develops a bond with Gladys, a comforting black nurse’s aide, unaware that Gladys’s son was involved in the crime. Soon, the charismatic Maxwell Noble, a celebrated photographer, is located in Europe and rushes to her side. Although he has led a globetrotting bachelor life, he surprises Paige by embracing his new responsibility. He reveals to her a family legacy in the headlines, beginning with the 1915 Eastland disaster on the Chicago River. But Maxwell struggles to hide his long-time obsession with Paige’s mother, his enchanting French sister-in-law.
When Paige discovers her mother’s hidden diary, the secrets of the past begin to surface. Paige and her uncle embark on a journey to France, retracing events of WWII and the Holocaust, in an effort to find the one remaining family member they could claim. Her parents were always intent on protecting Paige, but Maxwell allows her to embrace the Jewish history and heritage that she was denied.
A beautiful and moving story about a young girl’s coming-of-age and a man’s quest for a lost love, Protecting Paige combines family drama and fascinating historical detail to create a rich, thought-provoking world. 

Review: This was a fascinating read for me. It combines historical fiction with family drama, and is filled with twists and turns.

I do have to admit that I was disappointed with the way things were wrapped up, which is why I chose to rate only four stars. The solutions for the characters problems seemed slightly juvenile and far-fetched to me.

I enjoyed getting to know Paige and Max, and I look forward to reading more by this author. I hope that future stories will have better solutions for the characters.

**I received a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. All thoughts and opinions are entirely my own.**

Rating: Four stars

About the author

As a Book Club leader for over 20 years, Deby Eisenberg challenged herself to write a novel that her avid readers could not put down and would love to discuss. With a Masters Degree from the University of Chicago, she is a former literature and creative writing high school teacher and journalist. Deby Eisenberg became a part of the Jewish Book Council Author Network with her first novel, engaging audiences on her national speaking tour. Pictures of the Past has been named to library Best Fiction lists and featured on the cover of the Chicago Jewish News. With her new novel, Protecting Paige, the author, inspired by her love of literary research, art, architecture, Jewish history, and travel in the United States and Europe, once again envisioned a multi-generational love story that would inform as well as entertain, that would broaden the mind and open the heart. 
Readers of Sarah's Key and Those Who Save Us are drawn to Pictures of the Past. Although the novel does not just center on that one time period, it approaches the most serious subject of the Holocaust with vibrancy and heart. “As readers, we can better understand horrific events of global proportion through identification and empathy with individual experiences,” Eisenberg states.
She and her husband, Dr. Michael Eisenberg, an obstetrician-gynecologist live in Riverwoods, Illinois, and have three adult children and seven grandchildren.