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MY REVIEW
Hold Strong was more than ten years in the making and the depth of the details reflects it. The weaving of fact and fiction makes for an epic read. I was quickly drawn into Sam Carlson’s story and learned some startling things about World War II that had my jaw hanging open.
The characters are described in vivid detail, as are the torturous times they are put through. I found myself totally engrossed in their lives and how quickly they had changed after the bombing of Pearl Harbor.
If you are a fan of historical fiction and World War II, Hold Strong is a book you do not want to miss. The more than five hundred pages unfold, stirring emotions that run the gamut. I had never heard of the slave ships and what happened to them. I was shocked and struggled justifying the actions taken. The brutality heaped on the POWs from the Japanese was beyond understanding. To end on a happy note was a relief.
I voluntarily reviewed a free copy of Hold Strong by Robert Dugoni, Jeff Langholz, and Chris Crabtree. My thanks go out to Lake Union Publishing.
GOODREADS BLURB
From Robert Dugoni, Jeff Langholz, and Chris Crabtree comes an epic and inspiring novel—based on true events—about love, heroism, and resilience during the darkest chapters of World War II.
Sam Carlson is a projectionist in small-town Minnesota, where fantasies unspool in glorious black and white—for him and for his sweetheart, college-bound math whiz Sarah Haber. When the Japanese bomb Pearl Harbor, Sam is sent to the Philippines and captured as a POW. Brutalized but unbroken by the Bataan Death March and POW camps, Sam is one of 1,800 starved and weakened prisoners herded into the cargo hold of a barbaric hell ship called the Arisan Maru, his survival doubtful.
Determined to use her math skills on the home front, Sarah is recruited to Washington, DC, into the covert field of code breaking. When Sarah intercepts a message about a Japanese convoy, the US Navy’s mission is sink the Arisan Maru and send it to the bottom of the South China Sea. Now, the lives of the two young lovers are about to inadvertently collide in one of the most shocking acts of World War II.
Anchored in an extraordinary true story and breathlessly recreated, Hold Strong is a one-of-a-kind novel that explores faith, courage, survival, and coming home against insurmountable odds.
- Genre: Fiction, Historical Fiction, Romance, World War II
- 555 pages, Hardcover
- First published January 28, 2025 by Lake Union Publishing
ABOUT ROBERT DUGONI
Robert Dugoni is the critically acclaimed New York Times, and #1 Amazon bestselling author of the Tracy Crosswhite police series set in Seattle, which has sold more than 11 million books worldwide. He is also the author of The Charles Jenkins espionage series, the David Sloane legal thriller series, and The Keera Duggan legal thriller series. He has written several stand-alone novels including the historical novels A Killing on the Hill and Hold Strong, as well as the suspense novel The 7th Canon, and Damage Control. He has written the literary novels, The Extraordinary Life of Sam Hell – one of Newsweek Magazine’s Best Books of All-Time and Suspense Magazine’s 2018 Book of the Year, for which Dugoni’s narration won an AudioFile Earphones Award. He has also written the critically acclaimed novel, The World Played Chess; as well as the nonfiction exposé The Cyanide Canary, a Washington Post Best Book of the Year. His novels have been optioned for movies and television series. Dugoni is the recipient of the Nancy Pearl Award for Fiction and a four-time winner of the Friends of Mystery Spotted Owl Award for best novel set in the Pacific Northwest. He has also been a finalist for many other awards including the International Thriller Award, the Harper Lee Prize for Legal Fiction, the Silver Falchion Award for mystery, and the Mystery Writers of America Edgar Award.
Robert Dugoni’s books are sold in more than thirty-five countries and have been translated into more than thirty languages.
Visit his website at www.robertdugoni.com, and follow him on twitter @robertdugoni and on Facebook at www.facebook.com/AuthorRobertDugoni
ABOUT JEFF LANGHOLZ
Dr. Jeff Langholz is an award-winning teacher and writer whose work has appeared in more than 250 media outlets, including the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, National Geographic, and the Economist. His adventures span five continents and include stints as a rice farmer in West Africa with the US Peace Corps, a Fulbright Scholar in South Africa, a salmon fisherman in Alaska, a tree farmer in Central America, and a professional mediator in New York. He lives along Monterey Bay in California with his wife, dog, and two semiferal cats.
ABOUT CHRIS CRABTREE
From Indiana, Chris Crabtree attended the Indianapolis high school named after one of Hold Strong’s most heroic characters. His personal connection to the story also includes time spent in The Philippines, where the story starts. Chris served as a U.S. Peace Corps Volunteer in Sierra Leone, West Africa, where he and Jeff forged their decades-long friendship. He is an award-winning high school History and Literature teacher at Costa Rica International Academy in Guanacaste, Costa Rica.
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Robert Dugoni is the critically acclaimed New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post and #1 Amazon bestselling author of the Tracy Crosswhite police series set in Seattle, which has sold more than 8 million books worldwide. He is also the author of The Charles Jenkins espionage series, the David Sloane legal thriller series, and several stand-alone novels including The 7th Canon, Damage Control, and the literary novels, The Extraordinary Life of Sam Hell – Suspense Magazine’s 2018 Book of the Year, for which Dugoni’s narration won an AudioFile Earphones Award and the critically acclaimed, The World Played Chess; as well as the nonfiction exposé The Cyanide Canary, a Washington Post Best Book of the Year. Several of his novels have been optioned for movies and television series. Dugoni is the recipient of the Nancy Pearl Award for Fiction and a three-time winner of the Friends of Mystery Spotted Owl Award for best novel set in the Pacific Northwest. He has also been a finalist for many other awards including the International Thriller Award, the Harper Lee Prize for Legal Fiction, the Silver Falchion Award for mystery, and the Mystery Writers of America Edgar Award. 
4 Stars
