Reviewed by Lisa
"Promise not to Tell", a ghost story/murder mystery and also a story about how choices we make can affect us for the rest of our lives. By moving the story back and forth from the past to the present, the author pulls you in and makes it difficult to put down this book. Interesting characters, unusual settings, and more than one mystery make this one worth reading."
Type: Fiction, 256 pages, Trade paperback
Synopsis:
Forty-one-year-old school nurse Kate Cypher has returned home to rural Vermont to care for her mother who's afflicted with Alzheimer's. On the night she arrives, a young girl is murdered—a horrific crime that eerily mirrors another from Kate's childhood. Three decades earlier, her dirt-poor friend Del—shunned and derided by classmates as "Potato Girl"—was brutally slain. Del's killer was never found, while the victim has since achieved immortality in local legends and ghost stories. Now, as this new murder investigation draws Kate irresistibly in, her past and present collide in terrifying, unexpected ways. Because nothing is quite what it seems . . . and the grim specters of her youth are far from forgotten.
More than just a murder mystery, Jennifer McMahon's extraordinary debut novel, Promise Not to Tell, is a story of friendship and family, devotion and betrayal—tautly written, deeply insightful, beautifully evocative, and utterly unforgettable.
Reviews:
“A great, dark, spooky book for the summer.” – The Today Show
"'What's the worst thing you've ever done?' That's the question, posed by a stranger, that 41-year-old Kate Cypher can't get out of mind in McMahon's impressive debut.... McMahon's gift is the deliciously twisty way she subverts all your expectations, keeping you guessing with wry wit and feverish chills. 'The dead can blame,' one character says. And the truth, this whipsmart novel reminds us, can break your heart. 4 out of 4 stars" – People
“McMahon unfurls a whirlwind of suspense that alternates between 1971 and 2002…. Combining murder mystery and coming-of-age tale with supernatural elements, this taut novel is above all a reflection on the haunting power of memory. A-" – Entertainment Weekly