"A man has been stabbed. A woman is bloodstained. The nightmares from her teenage years have begun again for Olivia Field – just as she is preparing to marry.

Ex-convict, Tina is terminally ill. Before she dies, the care of her younger, psychologically unwell brother, Wayne must be ensured. So Tina calls in a promise made to her thirty years ago in a prison cell. A promise that was written down and placed with crucial evidence illustrating a miscarriage of justice in a murder case."

A fast paced thriller told from several viewpoints, which made it more intriguing while you work out whose version to believe.

A multi viewpoint book with a lot of intrigue. Was good to experience the novel from each viewpoint but felt the ending could have been neatened up.

This was an enjoyable thriller, written from multiple points of view, which many authors have difficulty with. Sally Jenkins did a good job writing each point of view in a way that gave each narrator a distinctive voice of their own. It was fast paced and really held my attention. It was a little predictable but interesting enough that it was still worth reading. The characters were all interesting and all of them had flaws. Most of them had few redeeming qualities. They definitely were memorable, though. I can honestly say that I'll probably read more of Sally Jenkins's work.

An interesting psychological thriller. Kept me engaged and reading until the end. Be careful what you wish for, but also what you promise

Great read! Looking forward to reading more by this author! I highly recommend this book and author to all!

i read this in 2018 and rated it 3/5 i didnt write a full review at the time, i enjoyed it but felt the ending left me with alot of questions.

Thanks to netgalley for the ARC of this thrilling read.
They always say, be careful what you wish for, but apparently you must be extra careful for what you promise!
Recommended.

When Sally finds out she has terminal cancer and wants to ensure that her brother will be cared for, she calls in a promise made to her in prison 30 years ago. This book shows the lengths someone will go to in order to protect someone they love.

A good psychological thriller. Well written and keeps your interest, however I am unsure of the ending ...
Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC in return for an honest review.

Wow what a thrilling read! Absolutely brilliant I was enthralled and couldnt get my head out of this book. Completely sucked me in and didnt spit ne out until the end, and what an ending! A fabulous 5 stars

Sorry to say this but the entire story is completely unbelievable. Just not my cup of tea, I'm afraid.

Thanks to NetGalley for providing me with a digital ARC in exchange for my honest review.

This novel was a lot of drama for me. I did enjoy how all the characters did intertwined with each other and the plot was spot on. I was intrigued the whole time.

I would like to thank NetGalley and the Publisher for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

I thought this story could have been better. It felt incomplete and unreal.

Tina is dying. She wants to ensure that her brother, Wayne, is cared for before she dies. Wayne has mental health problems which mean that he has struggled to hold down a job. Tina finds an old letter written by her prison cellmate many years ago asking that her son care for Tina should the need arise. Tina wants to hold Simon, and his then girlfriend, Olivia,, to this - by force and blackmail if need be.
I really struggled with this book. I found that the characters were doing and not doing very obvious and basic things. Tina claimed to have a paper stating that Oliva was a murderer. Olivia naturally enough doesn't want to go to prison. However she never asks to see the proof - where is the paper with these claims on it? Why does Olivia do the most terrible things including contemplating murdering her best friend without seeing any proof? Most odd. Simon is pushed into giving Wayne a job which is not successful. They know Tina is dying - why not promise her the world & then renage once she is dead? Not nice but nor is her blackmail. Once Tina started pressing for Olivia to break off her engagement & marry Wayne I just could not suspend my belief any more. They still hadn't seen the proof!
I didn't find the characters particularly pleasant. Tina is a blackmailing ex-con. Olivia is prepared to sacrifice almost everything to stay out of jail including lying and cheating and sacrificing her fiance and best friend. Simon is a bit weak and watery and could do with some backbone. I found that I didn't care much what happened to these people.
This is not a fast paced book but more of a slow burner. The writing is good but it just got more fantastic as the book progressed. I may have led a sheltered life but I really struggled to cope with the behaviour of the characters. I couldn't believe what they were doing and consequently just couldn't get into the book. It wasn't the big things such as the blackmailing but the smaller common sense things that caused the problems.
I received a free copy of this book from Netgalley.

The Promise is a great thriller. Sally writes so well, that despite the fact that nearly all of the characters are really unlikeable, I was totally enamoured with the book and intrigued to find out what was going on and how matters would be resolved.
The story centres around a promise that was made by a friend of one of the main characters, Tina, whilst they were in prison together. If ever Tina needed help, she should go to the friend’s son and daughter-in-law. Now Tina doesn’t have long to live she needs someone who will look after her fully grown brother who will be incapable of fending for himself once she has passed. Tina must find the son and daughter-in-law and secure a future for her brother. But how far will she go to make them keep her friend’s promise?
Thank you to NetGalley for a Kindle copy of this book in exchange of an honest review.

it was a good book not really what im used to reading but a very good ending

As soon as I read the blurb for this book I was intrigued and I knew that it would be a book that drew me in. I love a good psychological thriller so I was really looking forward to start this one.

The characters are great and the book is really well written with it being set and a great pace. I loved the suspense that the novel builds up as we find out more about Tina and Olivia. You are left guessing about what will happen next and what the ending and outcome will be – the book leaves you with one thought – How far would you go to protect those you love?

Four stars from me – highly recommended!

The Promise is a thriller based on the pretext of how far you would go to make someone honour a promise made years previously to someone now dead. In fact in this novel there are two promises at the centre of the plot. The first promise is one made to Tina, by her ex cell mate in prison Audrey, an offer of help on the outside if she should need it, albeit this promise was made about thirty years ago. The second promise also involves Tina, a promise she made to her mum on her death bed to look after her younger brother Wayne, who has mental health problems and is vulnerable and easily influenced by others. When Tina finds out she has terminal cancer she decides that to keep the promise to her mother she needs to call in the favour from Audrey.

Tina is a really unlikeable character; She obviously cares for her brother and has his best interests at heart but the way she proceeds, blackmail, threats and violence is certainly the wrong way to approach the situation. The rest of the characters, a fairly small group, are all very much interlinked together. Simon is the son of her ex cell mate Audrey, and his ex wife Olivia are the two people mentioned in the letter from Audrey, to whom Tina should go to for help. Both Olivia and Simon were at the scene of the murder for which Audrey was arrested and charged, and Tina has a piece of evidence that she can use to blackmail Olivia to get what she wants. Joanne is Olivia’s best friend and girlfriend of Simon, and Mark is Olivia’s fiancé. The final characters are Suzanne, Mark’s daughter from his first wife but very close to Olivia and Wayne, Tina’s brother. The characters interact well together and all want to protect their families but their friendship is tested by secrets and lies, and boundaries are crossed where there is no way back.

The Promise is a well written novel, nice short chapters to keep your attention and the plot moves quickly along with the past actions of Simon and Olivia being slowly revealed through the book. The The Promise is a short read at just over two hundred pages so there is not a lot of room for a complex plot, or in depth characters. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing though, sometimes it is nice to be able to sit and read a full story in one sitting, and this is one of those books. I was drawn in by the story line and characters and its thrilling conclusion; a brilliant, pacy thriller with an interesting plot line.

Disclaimer: I received a complimentary digital copy of The Promise by Sally Jenkins for the purpose of an honest review. The opinions expressed here are entirely my own.

A man has been stabbed. A woman is bloodstained. The nightmares from her teenage years have begun again for Olivia Field – just as she is preparing to marry.

Ex-convict, Tina is terminally ill. Before she dies, the care of her younger, psychologically unwell brother, Wayne must be ensured. So Tina calls in a promise made to her thirty years ago in a prison cell. A promise that was written down and placed with crucial evidence illustrating a miscarriage of justice in a murder case.
Tina believes Olivia is perfectly placed to provide the care Wayne needs, but to do so, Olivia must be forced to cancel her own wedding and wreck the lives of those close to her. Tina’s terrible blackmail demands put Olivia’s entire future and, ultimately, her freedom under threat.

The Promise by Sally Jenkins is a steady-paced, well written psychological thriller! Ms. Jenkins saturates The Promise with a myriad of characters and fills the pages with the slow building machinations of the present by filling us in on what happened 30 years ago.

The Promise held my attention with short chapters that kept me moving from page one through the end of the book. It was a quick read for me, but I enjoyed it thoroughly!

I give The Promise by Sally Jenkins four cups of steaming hot Room With Books coffee! I recommend you get your copy so you can join in the chatter! This book is bound to be a best-seller!

The Promise is an interesting and accurately paced psychological thriller. Many of the characters were unlikeable and this aided in the tension and the telling of the story. It is a relatively short book that managed to pack a lot in.

Tina is dying and she would like to see her brother settled before she dies, she made a promise to her mother to do so. When Tina was in prison many years previously she befriended Audrey who is in prison for murdering her husband. Audrey made a promise that her son and his partner would help Tina if needed. What ensues is a claustrophic story of blackmail, desperation and mental illness.

The Promise explores the lengths that someone is prepared to go to in order to honour a promise. Tina was particularly unlikeable but I think she behaved as she did out of desperation and love for her brother, by the end of the book she painted a pretty sad and lonely lady.

The reader is swept along with the story, always knowing which direction the story was headed but never quite sure of the journey. This is a book because of its length that I managed to read in one go. It didn't feature the complexity of some psychological thrillers that I have read but I enjoyed it nonetheless.

The ending provides somewhat of a cliffhanger and I hope that there is a follow up in the future.

I would recommend this to fans of thrillers who fancy a change of pace and direction from some of their recent reads.