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Just before I went on holiday I did a supermarket sweep for my kindle. The result was a random selection of books: serious, frivolous, fiction, non-fiction, classic, new. I can't remember why I chose 'The Promise' - perhaps it was a linked recommendation or it was on a list somewhere. I certainly couldn't remember anything about it and the problem with kindles is that there is no picture of the book cover, no blurb on the back or quotes from reviewers. Your only option is to read the book. And so it was that I started 'The Promise' without preconceptions.
The plot is slight but absorbing and you cannot tell which way it will end until it does. There are bright, fresh descriptions of a landscape I do not know and the people who lived there. Salt air leaks out of the book and clings to your fingertips as you read. It is about love, of course, but love looked at from many different angles so that it becomes anguish, fear, jealousy, courage. I want you to read this book too, so that you can wonder at the power of a writer to evoke a lost world. It will win prizes, I am sure of that, so read 'The Promise' now before it becomes famous and everyone has told you what to think about it.
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You have reminded me how much I enjoyed her first book, The Personal History of Rachel Dupree.
ReplyDeleteOo sounds like a goody - it's going on the list.
ReplyDeleteI wish I read.
ReplyDeleteIt's wonderful, isn't it!
ReplyDeleteIt's been shortlisted for the Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction, so fingers crossed for that (the winner will be announced on June 13th).
That definitely sounds like another one for my list!
ReplyDeleteI'm going for it. I'm on holiday soon and so if I don't read it before I shall definitely read it then.
ReplyDeletep.s. - have been messing about with blogger and I'm back to being me!