A Race Against Time
Sam Fox spent his whole life running against the hands of time, from family obligations and military authorities, an often-fatal disease, a tragic accident.
Dubbed a hero in a deadly workplace shooting spree, Sam is now racing to set the record straight about a few secrets he and Hannah, his wife of 65 years, have been harboring from their children and each other.
What Hannah doesn’t know is that Sam has additional demons to bear. Will Sam purge his guilty conscience before the couple completely runs out of time? Will he atone for his offenses and find the solace he seeks in the final countdown?
Hands of Gold, loosely based on real events, follows Sam along a path that takes him from war-torn Europe at the turn of the 20th century through Prohibition, the Great Depression, labor union reforms and the golden age of radio and television in America. He’ll face a number of financial, emotional and health challenges along the way. Namely, he’ll contract tuberculosis, accidentally kill a man in a trolley collision, and lose a grown son to leukemia.
Still, Sam is destined to make a mark in America as he turns his misfortunes into opportunities for redemption. He becomes a test case for the first TB antibiotic. And, as a supervisor at a New York vocational rehab center, he shields 200 co-workers from a disgruntled gun-wielding employee. All because he came to America, escaping the subsequent fate of so many of his family – the notorious Auschwitz concentration camps.
As Sam comes to grips with his past, a gold watch from his grandmother, lost and buried during the war, will find its way back into his hands. Through Sam, we can learn to find the silver lining in our everyday struggles by holding onto the hands of those we love, along with a little self-reliance and even a few miracles.
Read Sam’s story in the historical novel judged a quarterfinalist in the 2009 Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award contest.
About Roni Robbins
Hands of Gold capitalizes on award-winning author Roni Robbins’ 35 years as a published writer. Currently an editor/writer for Medscape/WebMD and previously associate editor of the Atlanta Jewish Times/The Times of Israel, she has a seasoned history as a staff reporter for daily and weekly newspapers and as a freelancer for national, regional and online publications.
Robbins’ articles have appeared in The Huffington Post, Forbes, the New York Daily News, Adweek, WebMD and Healthline. She wrote for Mother Nature Network; The Forward; FromTheGrapevine; and Hadassah magazine, among others.She was also a staff writer for Florida Today/USA Today, The Birmingham News and the Atlanta Business Chronicle/American City Business Journals.
In addition to major CEOs and politicians, Robbins has interviewed such celebrities as Wolf Blitzer, Andy Gibb, Hank Aaron and Usher.
In 2009, Hands of Gold was a quarter-finalist for historical fiction in the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award contest. Robbins also won three Simon Rockower Awards for Jewish journalism from the American Jewish Press Association, including an investigative piece about Jewish seniors who feel “Out of Touch” in nursing homes. Other prestigious news-writing awards come from The State Bar of Georgia, the Alabama Associated Press and the South Carolina Press Association.
Robbins first novel Hands of Gold is a work of fiction loosely based on an inspiring true story. Using literary license, Robbins pulls from the original cassette tapes left by her maternal grandfather, who survived TB, a workplace shooting and an accidental killing, and walked thousands of miles across several countries to flee anti-Semitism in pre-Nazi Europe.
The story begins and ends in a nursing home with a remarkable secret, a past worth chronicling and a cherished treasure that was buried for years and uncovered.
Praise for Hands of Gold
Hands of Gold is Roni’s first novel, a quarter-finalist in the 2009 Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award contest. The story takes readers from war-torn Hungary, when it was still part of the Austro-Hungarian empire, into 1920s America. One of the contest’s editorial reviewers wrote: “I like that this story is about different eras, building to the conclusion that is the same for all of us.” More than 60 Amazon readers judged the opening chapters of Hands of Gold worthy of a 4.7-star rating. Publishers Weekly also praised the novel as solid, interesting and entertaining.
The author carries us through the lifetime of a fascinating Jewish man who used his wonderful hands to survive. They also were filled with romance as he and his wife spent 6 decades together. The reader will look at his own hands and wonder out loud if they have been as energized as those of the hero. I, too, ask myself — how many special traits do my ten fingers possess? Robbins’ book offers each of us our own personal answer.
David Geffen is an American-born historian, author and rabbi living in Jerusalem. His writing has appeared in such publications as The Jerusalem Post.
Author Roni Robbins weaves together a historic novel inspired by true events that is a page-turning credit to her literary talents. Her book Hands of Gold is a testament to her storytelling ability, a timeless treasure lost in the horrific tragedies of war, with a spirited main character who lived through one challenge after another. Robbins portrays the spirit of a man, though broken, who is memorable as he holds onto life, time and what truly matters most. An amazing book about resilience, worthy of your immediate attention.
Robyn Spizman is a media personality and an award-winning New York Times bestselling author who has written more than 50 books.
“Where are all your great miracles now?” the story begins, in the hoarse, wry, honest voice of the much-traveled, much-aggrieved Sam Fox, a Zelig of a fictional spinoff of the author’s grandfather. An Eastern European immigrant, born at the start of the new century – “My birth was not the greatest timing, I know. But who was I to question such a thing?” – he managed to taste, and to suffer, much of what mid-century America had to offer, from the golden age of TV & radio to a mass shooting at a workplace. A natural-born survivor, skipping across borders, changing identities, harboring secrets, Sam always made time to relish moments of happiness, always displaying — even when on the run, even when grieving his loved ones — a tremendous love of life.
Melissa Fay Greene, a two-time National Book Award finalist, is the author of Praying for Sheetrock and The Temple Bombing.
Based on the lives of her immigrant forebears from Hungary and their American-born children, Roni Robbins has written an absorbing and richly detailed novel about the struggles and triumphs of people who made their way in the promised land of America during the last century. The novel traces the lives of the many members of the Fox family. The characters are vividly drawn and the novel contains many moving stories and episodes. One, in particular, that stands out in the mind of the reviewer involves the journey of Mo Fox to Europe in the wake of the Holocaust to retrieve a family heirloom that represents the title of the novel. Readers interested in learning much about the story of the Jewish immigrant experience in America will find Ms. Robbins’ novel a richly rewarding experience.
Sheldon Neuringer is a retired history professor and published author of stories about history and Jewish life, including two novels about Jewish youths growing up in New York. He recently wrote a short story, For the Love of Yiddish.
Hands of Gold 