Promise
Sarah Armstrong
Anna hears screaming coming from her new next door neighbours, and recognises the sound as a child in danger. Calling protective services seems to do nothing, and when it seems as if the child is likely to be murdered, Anna takes matters into her own hands.
How accurate are the court scenes in this? I think that this author will have done due diligence in her research. But please! Don’t take the law into your own hands! I know that child protective services will often err on the side of caution to not take a child away. As I learnt in How (not) to Start an Orphanage, the best place for children to grow up is in a caring (usually biological) family environment. This book takes that to extremes.
There are a number of interesting interlocking situations that have led Anna to feel this way about a child. I sometimes felt that these overshadowed the main point of Charlie’s welfare, but I also understood that the author included them in order to add depth to her character. It’s interesting to see how the past influences the future.
My goodness gracious me. It took a lot for me to pick up this novel. Then I happily read until I was about a third of the way through. Then the pace stopped. I kept reading until halfway, and then stopped reading for a bit. It was just so slow from there on! By the time I got to the end of the novel, I was barely invested in the outcome.
For this reason, I’ll only be giving it 3 stars. If it had been able to maintain the momentum from the first third of the novel (including perhaps a more exciting ‘chase scene’), that would have pushed it over the line to 4 stars just for the concept. If you enjoy Jodi Picoult’s thought provoking works (I’ve read and reviewed four of them, as linked), this is going to be for you.
Pan Macmillan | 28th July 2016 | AU $32.99 | Paperback
What sold the first novel to me was missing in this novel. While there were interlocking storylines, it didn’t ‘have the mystery of the first novel. It also lapsed back into too descriptive prose – the one line that has stuck with me is that Logan wears Burt’s Bees Cranberry flavour.
This novel was particularly pertinent to me when I read it, as I had just shown a group of year 9 students around my university. It’s so easy to be mean to other people without even thinking about it.
Considering that there are some situations that could potentially be huge, the writing is sensitive, nuanced, and realistic. It’s just as good as, and perhaps better than, this author’s other novels (I have reviewed 
Kendra deals with crimes that would make a squeamish person nervous in a way that makes you think she has no feelings. In this novel though, you start to see her coming apart at the seams, and what her family and friends need to do to let her recover. I want Kendra to be happy, but I also want her to do more awesome things!
What might be a fruitless task is explored sensitively and in a reckless pace that makes you want to keep reading. It’s like the aftermath of a train wreck where you think the worst has happened, but then more things keep popping up.
I’m having a problem with some of these honeymoon romance periods novels at the moment. The sad truth is that many relationships won’t survive past the 2 year biological imperative. This novel is more important than that though, it’s about coming out in a place where you think everyone will be hostile.
What I liked about this novel were the wide range of characters included. It felt like you were really getting entwined in the communities. They weren’t just one-dimensional characters brought in to further the story, it felt like they actually contributed to the lives of the family.
Here the multiple perspectives worked quite well, but not flawlessly. I could have done without some in favour of some more from Lily’s captor. I imagine that he would have been the hardest character to write, as he needed to be realistic and yet creepily absent at the same time. He reminded me of 
This novel is basically built on the idea that monsters are more interesting than heroes. Isn’t that true? Monsters always get to have more fun! I’m not sure that’s exactly true for the entirety of the novel, but true feelings come out towards the end.