Promise

Promise by Rachel Eliza Griffiths
UK Publication: July 2023
Reviewed by: Book Worm
Rating: [★★★★]

This ARC was provided by John Murray Press (via NetGalley) in exchange for an honest review.

One/two word review – Nerve-wracking

Synopsis from Goodreads: The people of Salt Point are afraid of the world beyond their rural town. Most of them are born, live and die never having gone more than twenty or thirty miles from houses that are crammed with generations of their families. But something shifts at the end of summer 1957. Change makes its way to Salt Point.

The Kindred sisters – Ezra and Cinthy – grew up with an abundance of love. Love from their parents, who let them believe that the stories they tell on stars can come true. Love from their neighbours, the Junketts, the only other Black family in town, whose home is filled with spice-rubbed ribs and ground-shaking hugs. And love for their adopted hometown of Salt Point, a beautiful New England village perched high up on coastal bluffs.

But as the girls hit adolescence, their white neighbours, including Ezra’s best friend, Ruby, start to see their maturing bodies and minds in a different way. And as the news from distant parts of the country fills with calls for freedom, equality, and justice for Black Americans, the white villagers of Salt Point begin to view the Kindreds and the Junketts as a threat to their way of life. Amidst escalating violence, prejudice, and fear, bold Ezra and watchful Cinthy must reach deep inside the wells of love they’ve built to commit great acts of heroism and grace on the path to survival.

In luminous, richly descriptive writing, Promise celebrates one family’s story of resistance. It’s a book that will break your heart – and then rebuild it with courage, hope, and love.

My Thoughts: OMG this book was tense and intense from start to finish. There are lighter moments when Cinthy’s thoughts are just the thoughts of a child but the undercurrent of fear experienced as a reader never lets up.

Small town America white dominated with only 2 black families the backdrop of the Civil Rights movement and the fear that change brings you know going in this story will be brutal and it is. There are horrific moments and there are tender moments, there are characters you hate and characters you love, there are events I wish were unbelievable and there is unbelievable grace and tenderness.

Do not go into this lightly.

This book will stay with me for a long time.

Who would like this? I would recommend this to everyone who wants an insight into the civil rights movement, what it meant for isolated families and how easy it is to do wrong when wrong is the majority viewpoint.

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