The Promise Trilogy 2
(2026)(The second book in the Promise Trilogy series)
A novel by Sherilyn Decter
East Harlem, August 1919. Lucie Santoro knows the truth: the life her family chose for her is not the life she wants. But knowing isn't the same as choosing — and choosing has a price she hasn't yet learned to pay.
Still wearing Carlo Colucci's ring, bound by family honor and two hundred wedding invitations already addressed, seventeen-year-old Lucie tries to sustain an impossible double life. By day, she's the dutiful daughter and devoted fiancée everyone expects. By night, she teaches civics and literacy to immigrant union men at the Henry Street Settlement House — men whose citizenship exams stand between them and deportation.
When a silver flask engraved with the wrong man's initials scatters across the church steps after Sunday Mass, the careful performance shatters. Scandal doesn't wait for the right moment. And in East Harlem, the neighborhood sees everything.
As the Red Scare tightens around immigrant communities and federal agents compile their lists, Lucie's classroom becomes as dangerous as it is vital. Dante Mazzarone's reappearance sharpens every fracture. Carlo's heartbreaking kindness — his steady, genuine love — makes the hardest choice harder, not easier. And her students' trust raises the stakes beyond anything she imagined: this isn't just her freedom anymore. It's theirs.
To claim the life she believes in, Lucie must break an engagement backed by the Archbishop, withstand the full weight of community judgment, and accept exile from the only world she has ever known.
Book One ended with awareness. Book Two ends with consequence.
The Promise Trilogy: Book Two is historical women's fiction set in 1919 New York, for readers who love stories where women navigate power, scandal, and selfhood with intelligence and cost.
Genre: Historical
Still wearing Carlo Colucci's ring, bound by family honor and two hundred wedding invitations already addressed, seventeen-year-old Lucie tries to sustain an impossible double life. By day, she's the dutiful daughter and devoted fiancée everyone expects. By night, she teaches civics and literacy to immigrant union men at the Henry Street Settlement House — men whose citizenship exams stand between them and deportation.
When a silver flask engraved with the wrong man's initials scatters across the church steps after Sunday Mass, the careful performance shatters. Scandal doesn't wait for the right moment. And in East Harlem, the neighborhood sees everything.
As the Red Scare tightens around immigrant communities and federal agents compile their lists, Lucie's classroom becomes as dangerous as it is vital. Dante Mazzarone's reappearance sharpens every fracture. Carlo's heartbreaking kindness — his steady, genuine love — makes the hardest choice harder, not easier. And her students' trust raises the stakes beyond anything she imagined: this isn't just her freedom anymore. It's theirs.
To claim the life she believes in, Lucie must break an engagement backed by the Archbishop, withstand the full weight of community judgment, and accept exile from the only world she has ever known.
Book One ended with awareness. Book Two ends with consequence.
The Promise Trilogy: Book Two is historical women's fiction set in 1919 New York, for readers who love stories where women navigate power, scandal, and selfhood with intelligence and cost.
Genre: Historical