The Promise Trilogy 3
(2026)(The third book in the Promise Trilogy series)
A novel by Sherilyn Decter
New York, 1919. The raids have started. The chairs in her classroom are going empty.
Lucie Santoro has already lost her engagement, her standing in the neighborhood, and the safety that comes with silence. Now federal agents are sweeping through immigrant communities, and her students — the men and women she taught English, citizenship, constitutional rights — are disappearing overnight.
When the Henry Street Settlement is shut down and converted to a flu ward, Lucie loses her classroom. But she refuses to stop. What begins in tenement kitchens — Italian, Polish, Russian, Jewish, and Irish women sharing soup and information across language barriers — grows into something no one planned: a women's auxiliary running supply lines, medical cooperatives, rent strikes, and emergency funds across East Harlem, the Lower East Side, and the waterfront.
A labor lawyer tells her to keep writing. A union organizer says her evidence could save lives — or end hers. An agent named Foley watches from the sidewalk with an open notebook.
On Thanksgiving morning, Lucie stands on a makeshift platform at Pier 54, speaking to five thousand dockworkers and their families — with federal agents in the crowd, her brother beside her, and a Tribune photographer capturing every word.
The cost is real. Friends are beaten. Allies are deported. The family she loves may not forgive what she's become. And the question she's been circling all autumn finally demands an answer — not as philosophy, but as a woman standing above a harbor with the whole city watching.
Who do you become when you can no longer return to who you were?
The Promise: Book Three concludes Sherilyn Decter's acclaimed trilogy of a young Italian-American woman's transformation from dutiful daughter to movement builder in the volatile aftermath of World War I. Set against the 1919 Red Scare, the Palmer Raids, the Great Steel Strike, and the flu pandemic, this is a story of exile, belonging, and the courage it takes to build something new when the old world can no longer hold you.
For readers of Lisa Wingate, Kristin Hannah, and Fiona Davis — and anyone who loves historical fiction where women refuse to stay small.
Genre: Historical
Lucie Santoro has already lost her engagement, her standing in the neighborhood, and the safety that comes with silence. Now federal agents are sweeping through immigrant communities, and her students — the men and women she taught English, citizenship, constitutional rights — are disappearing overnight.
When the Henry Street Settlement is shut down and converted to a flu ward, Lucie loses her classroom. But she refuses to stop. What begins in tenement kitchens — Italian, Polish, Russian, Jewish, and Irish women sharing soup and information across language barriers — grows into something no one planned: a women's auxiliary running supply lines, medical cooperatives, rent strikes, and emergency funds across East Harlem, the Lower East Side, and the waterfront.
A labor lawyer tells her to keep writing. A union organizer says her evidence could save lives — or end hers. An agent named Foley watches from the sidewalk with an open notebook.
On Thanksgiving morning, Lucie stands on a makeshift platform at Pier 54, speaking to five thousand dockworkers and their families — with federal agents in the crowd, her brother beside her, and a Tribune photographer capturing every word.
The cost is real. Friends are beaten. Allies are deported. The family she loves may not forgive what she's become. And the question she's been circling all autumn finally demands an answer — not as philosophy, but as a woman standing above a harbor with the whole city watching.
Who do you become when you can no longer return to who you were?
The Promise: Book Three concludes Sherilyn Decter's acclaimed trilogy of a young Italian-American woman's transformation from dutiful daughter to movement builder in the volatile aftermath of World War I. Set against the 1919 Red Scare, the Palmer Raids, the Great Steel Strike, and the flu pandemic, this is a story of exile, belonging, and the courage it takes to build something new when the old world can no longer hold you.
For readers of Lisa Wingate, Kristin Hannah, and Fiona Davis — and anyone who loves historical fiction where women refuse to stay small.
Genre: Historical