The Promise
By
Teresa Driscoll

What it's all about...

Three friends who meet at a Catholic boarding school...with lots of nuns...share in a terrible tragedy that they have kept secret for all of their lives.  When they learn that their old school and the grounds around it will be torn down...they begin to worry that their secret may not be a secret any more.  


My thoughts after reading this book...

Carol, Sal and Beth have allowed this well kept secret to affect their lives and now with the potential that it might be out there is even more stress and more mystery.  The fact that they have not shared this with anyone...not even parents or husbands...makes everything worse than it should be. 


What I loved best...

Reading this book was like opening presents or actually watching blocks tumble.  One thing kept leading to the next thing until finally every secret was exposed.  


What potential readers might want to know...

This was a fast paced and beautifully written book.  The suspense was in my face from the start and I didn’t want to stop reading.  I know I will read more of this author’s haunting books!  

I received this book from the publisher through NetGalley.  It was my choice to read and review it.

Brilliant plot, excellent main characters that you invest in.  I read this book in one sitting and I would highly recommend it.

Had a hard time getting into this one. Description sounded amazing but it just wasn’t. I could not relate to the characters at all. Which to me was sad. I love reading a book that has great character development.

This book sounded really good, unfortunately it was very slow to get going and half way through I found myself skipping pages, just not gripping enough and took too long to find out what “the promise is” 
More woman’s fiction than the thriller I was hoping for.

This book was a slow burner for me - it took me a few chapters to get into and I didn't really feel any threat against the characters until roughly halfway in. Most of the mystery centres around the mysterious Carol, and I didn't feel like we got much insight into her character. I did enjoy this book though, and I felt that the blending of past and present was done well

The writing is of quality and the story okay but all in all, the book is too long. The angst about the event in the past.... mentioned frequently but without depth. Do they suffer from PTSD, if so this is not clear and described appropriately- with passion. Guilt? What was Beth ‘guilty’ of ... again no depth. Many threads over elaborated, small mysteries dropped in and all the ‘action’ left until the end and tied up neatly in the last few of many, many chapters..... Sorry this style of novel is not for me.

The Promise wasn't quite what I expected, though I enjoyed it regardless. It's marketed as a thriller, but it feels more like women's fiction with a slight suspense twist. To that end, readers who enjoy domestic/women's fiction aspects in their suspense novels will likely devour The Promise. For me, it was a solid 3.5 star read, rounded up to a 4 here.

At first, going in, I had hoped The Promise would prove the successful execution of the premise of The Lying Game that that book failed to deliver. Three girls who were at boarding school together bonded together by a horrible event, and a secret kept for twenty years. The school being sold for development forces them to confront old demons.

The book follows multiple points of view, namely: Beth who is a mom of two and is the "mum" type in the boarding school friend trio. She drives the majority of the plot, as she myopically focuses on trying to track down estranged friend Carol and solve the problem (of the school grounds being dug up, so we assume there is a buried body). She initiates hiring private investigator Matthew, who is another POV. And then we get chapters that are excerpts from Carol's journal--the estranged friend now living in France. Beth's POVs oscillate between the present and the past, though I'll say the past chapters include narrative/context from "current" Beth. They aren't exactly flashbacks, which I'll talk a bit more about. The third friend who made the "promise" to keep a secret is Sally, who is a bit milquetoast and doesn't get her own POV, but you certainly feel Beth's love for her.

The first half of the book feels like the psychological thriller I expected, and surpassed what The Lying Game was (yay), but close to the break into the third act as dominos kept falling and it became more clear what the secret was, the book veered more sharply into women's fiction. The twists and stakes became very firmly rooted in tropes you'd find in that genre. Not necessarily what I'd pick up normally, but I did care enough about the characters to feel invested in those complications. But I was expecting something more high concept/thrillery--ie: a murder, diabolical teens, etc.

What I really want is the boarding school secrets book of my dreams--teen mean girls! Murder! Secrets that must be reconciled as adults! Now I've read two British thrillers based on that concept and neither worked for me. The issue in Ruth Ware's The Lying Game was that there weren't enough flashbacks from when the girls' were teenagers, and all the twists were told to the reader by adult characters--just wasn't engaging.

The Promise has far more dips into the past at steady intervals, but my block there is that within the "then" chapters, the POV character is still reflecting on the past as their current self--so it feels like telling, rather than immersive storytelling from that time. Since I'm a massive YA reader, I always hope for teen flashbacks to be full dramatization rather than include adult reflection, if that makes sense. I wasn't surprised at all to find out the author is a journalist--the book has that narrative style. (I actually love books in that narrative style though; this isn't a negative, just an observation)

I was genuinely taken by the twists beyond the secret from boarding school (which became clear mid-way through)--I didn't guess one of them, and the other I only guessed because of a slightly confusing "breadcrumb" scene the author inserted in act three. The one I didn't guess, I am definitely kicking myself for not figuring out myself. I'd be curious to go back and reread to see if I can see it in hindsight. The very last part of the book was really intense, and I liked the resolution.

One more tiny quibbly thing: some of the Britishisms in the book drove me bonkers. I'm a well-acclimated British English reader (my dad is British, my mother a proper Anglophile--I grew up saying whinging and bog standard, words I've come to discover are not normal for Americans to use), and yet I was thrown by a few phrases and words that just felt SO fiddly. There was one in particular I had to Google, and the first few results weren't even the word definition! According to Google recce "might" refer to reconnaissance... and I think that was the meaning in the book, but it was a WEIRD usage. And I just searched it again and the dictionary says "British, old fashioned." LOL, indeed. And the word is in the book twice! It's a case where a good copy editor should have suggested a better word/nixed it. It really threw me/annoyed me as a reader.

Highly recommend this for fans of domestic thrillers, or women's fiction with a twist.

Thank you to Thomas & Mercer and NetGalley for providing an ARC for review.

I had to DNF this book. The first two thirds of the book, we are repeatedly reminded of ‘the promise’ and what happened that night. However, we don’t get the big reveal till about 67% in and by that point, I was just bored. I called it quits.

You've read the summary...here's my thoughts. 
The Promise had a very promising premise :).  Three friends at boarding school take part in some horrible act that they promise to never tell anyone else about.  Sounds like a fun start.  Problem is the author gives so little information about what may have happened that I really have no empathy for any of the characters.  They all seem very self-absorbed to the point that I begin to not even care about what they promised.  Finally three quarters of the way through (surprised I stayed with it) we begin to see what these girls, and subsequently women, have been dealing with throughout their lives. I just wish the author could have found a way to shed a light on any one of them, if not all of them, to make me feel more invested in their story.  It almost seemed the big reveals came a little too late for me.  
Now granted, Driscoll does a fine job of wrapping up all the loose ends and the resolution is somewhat satisfying. As far as organization, each chapter was labeled with the character it centered on and whether is was present (2016) or when Beth, Sally and Carol were just schoolgirls.  It became somewhat annoying that even in the current-day chapters there were so many flashbacks that the labeling seemed awkward.  I appreciate Netgalley/Thomas & Mercer granting me an ARC for this novel. I recommend it with the footnote that, for me, it doesn't stand out as one of the best in this genre.

The Promise is a psychological thriller that didn't quite live up to its potential.
I found the characters simple and not well developed. The story line was good but 
the lack of character depth distracted from the plot. I did enjoy the fast paced nature
of the book, just didn't quite cut if for me as a psychological thriller.

Haunting ~ Believable ~ Creepy

tl; dr: Three friends make a promise and it comes back to haunt them [cue spooky music]

Thirty years after three girls make a promise their school is being torn down. Two are still friends, and one is estranged. This book's suspense comes partly from the believability. The three main characters could be anyone, even you, on some level. Most women have the sort of friendships as these women, and we also know how a friend might be pushed out of the group. 

I loved Driscoll's previous book. This one was slower. It wasn't so slow that I gave up. Just be aware the pacing is different than her previous effort. 

3.5

Thanks to NetGalley for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I was unable to finish The promise because I just couldn't get into it and kept getting rather confused by all the characters and time frames etc. I was really upset about this because I have heard so many great things about this author and her other book 'Watching you' But sadly I just couldn't get into this one.

The Promise has a good hook, but doesn't quite hold on like I hoped. In fact, it took me a while to finish this one with it's slow pace and many jumps between characters and time. We finally get the full reveal on what brought about this dark promise at about 65% into the book, and from there the story does pick up some. In the end, most of these characters have a secret of one kind or another, the darkest of which being what started it all. At the end of the day, this one had potential, and it does live up to some of that, but the first half of the book moves too slow for my tastes, and it just didn't hold my interest enough for me to connect with these characters.

This book started out ok. There was suspense and mystery. Three friends made a promise to keep a secret. About halfway through, that secret is revealed.  From that point, it seemed to me to be a slow decline. The secret turned into multiple secrets, each darker than the previous. It got to be too much going on and all at once. Oh well. On to the next!

Creepy, dark, powerful. Three words for a story about three women who, as school girls, made a promise to keep a secret. Years later, a lot has happened. Now there are more secrets, more with every chapter, it seems.

Teresa Driscoll seems to have found something of a niche with her style of writing. Things all start fairly low-key and low on drama. I find myself more curious than gripped... and then something else happens. Something that slots a dozen little pieces into place. Red herrings are brushed aside as sublimely subtle parts of the story connect and ramp up the tension. Suddenly the pages change from a steady read into a "one more page" story. It's clever and rewarding. It also gives the story an even greater emotional impact for Driscoll is happy to cover some pretty tough subjects. Trigger warnings aplenty for this book! However, Driscoll also tries to tie up loose ends to avoid too many "but what about...?" type questions. It gives the reader a chance to catch their breath from a hectic conclusion and offers a sense of resolution.

It's almost impossible to say more on the plot without delving into spoilers, but it's the normalcy of everything that makes it all so captivating. The characters are simple and relatable, they feel like people you could know, or pass in the street without thinking. Not just in terms of their background, but in the drama unfolding too. Nothing is outrageously far-fetched. The whole thing feels a little uneasy just because it's so comfortingly normal.

If you want action this won't quite hit the spot. If you want chilling, this could be the book for you. Just like being at school, the more you learn the more you want to know!

I absolutely loved this book from beginning to end from the amazing plot to the characters that capture you and enough twists and turns to make you dizzy. There was no taking this book away from.me until I was done. You would have had to pry it from my cold dead fingers. Happy reading!

I gave this a solid three. I'm a big fan of characters flashing back to things they did as teens, but this was just a tad slow for me.  I skimmed over some parts. I was wanting more thrills, I guess. It was still a good read, just not a great one. Thank you, NetGalley for the ARC.

Beth, Sally, and Carol met as teenagers and soon became the best of friends at boarding school, until something awful happened and Carol began to sever ties with them. Now, years later, Beth and Sally are on a mission to find Carol before a secret they promised to keep is revealed. Although this book is represented as a psychological thriller I think it would be better categorized as women's fiction. There really is no heart pounding suspense or shocking twists that one would expect from a psychological thriller. It is more an exploration of the relationship between the three girls and how the past shaped their future relationships with each other and their husbands.
3.5 stars

I found the writing to be beautiful however the plot was not. The story dragged on and on until finally I gave up. 

I’ll maybe try another book from this author but this one is just not for me.

It was their darkest secret. Three schoolgirls made a promise – to take the horrible truth of what they did to the grave.

Thirty years later, Beth and Sally have tried to put the trauma behind them. Though Carol has distanced herself from her former friends, the three are adamant that the truth must never come to light, even if the memory still haunts them.

But when some shocking news threatens to unearth their dark secret, Beth enlists the help of private investigator Matthew Hill to help her and Sally reconnect with estranged Carol ­– before the terrible act they committed as teenagers is revealed.

Beth wishes she could take back the vow they made.

But somebody is watching and will stop at nothing to ensure the secret stays buried. Now, with her beloved family in peril, can Beth still keep the promise?

I did enjoy this book. I liked getting to know the characters and finding out what the secret these 14 year old girls had kept for so long. I did wonder at Beth's character and how she became depressed but then suddenly seemed to be well again. It was a fairly sad story in a way which shows how secrets can be so punishing and affect your life. It's much better to share with a trusted friend! I did like the ending even though it was a bit fairy tale!

Worth a read!

Thanks to NetGalley for my free copy.