The Promise by Beth Wiseman ~ Book Review

As a teenager, Mallory Hammond made a promise to her dying cousin...that if she couldn't help save her life she would save someone else's.   Now an adult Mallory feels adrift in life as that promise hangs heavy on her.  When she starts working for her friend's fiance who is a doctor, she learns of a young girl who is from Pakistan that desperately needs help.  But in order to help her, Mallory needs to get her to the States for treatment and the only way to do that is risk everything and travel to a very dangerous part of the world and do something that will take all her courage.    Flying in the face of all reason and with dire warnings from her fiance, her friend and sister along with government warnings about the area, she decides to do it anyway so that she can fulfill her promise but what she finds waiting for her may cost her more than she ever bargained for.

I ordered this book because I have loved the other two contemporary books by this author that I have read.  Although the back description really didn't draw me at first, I went with the good reading experience I had already had.  And I'm glad I did.  I ended up really liking the book.  But to be totally honest the character of Mallory drove me nuts throughout the book.  Because of the promise she had made and her deep desire to fulfill it, she was totally blinded to what was common sense and warnings from those she should have trusted.  But the story really drew me in and I could feel her fiance's and friends tensions as she determined to make it happen.  At the end, what made the book even more interesting and relevant was reading the author's notes on why she wrote the book.  Based on a good friend's personal experiences, it made the story that much more real.  It brought to light & explained how people motivated by love and sacrifice can be betrayed and how shame or embarrassment keeps them from asking for help until sometimes it may be too late.  She explained which parts and experiences in the story her friend had actually lived through and that she wrote the story hoping to make a difference.   She also wrote the book hoping it would bring closure to their own situation and in an effort to understand her own friend's actions.  It certainly opened my eyes to how a person can get themselves into these kinds of situations beyond their control and moved me from being frustrated with the character to having empathy for the character.  The author's notes are a part of this book that shouldn't be left unread.

I gave this book a 9/10.