A heartbreaking, but terrifically written, debut novel.

Griffiths covers a lot of heavy topics - racism, violence, and death set in the 1950s North just as the Civil Rights Act has been signed.

This isn't a bright and breezy novel that can be read in one sitting. It's an exhausting historical piece of fiction that will break you but is also a must read.

I did not like the character of Ruby or Miss Alley, Griffiths cleverly writes them so you do hate them and feel kinship with the Kindred girls.

This is a beautifully written book. It didn’t feel ‘rushed’, allowing the characters develop, almost, naturally. There were times when I cringed, cried and chuckled. It was a powerful tale of racism, one that I can’t pretend I understand, but also of love. Highly recommend this book.

A terrific novel that creates an incredible sense of place. I felt like I lived in the 1950s, with all its tensions, divisions and unthinkable challenges. Such brave, stirring characters.

Griffith’s debut novel releases so may emotions, the love and closeness of two families, their fear for their children who are unaware of the potential danger and their need to protect them from the ugly world of racism, the heartbreak of loss and mourning. Her writing is poetry and her characters are well defined.
This is a book that needs to be read, as the same issues show their ugly side again. This is one that will stay with me.

I knew this book would be good, but, honestly, I wasn't prepared for how good or how powerful it was. I couldn't put it down and when I finished it stayed with me for a long time. Fantastic

Really wanted to like this but unfortunately I just couldn’t connect with the slow style of writing to the extent that I would’ve liked to.

This is a powerful debut novel that addresses pertinent societal issues that, sadly, remain as relevant today as they were in the late 1950s where the novel commences: systemic racism, gender discrimination, child cruelty, coercive control, domestic violence … in the hands of any other writer, this would make for a very bleak narrative indeed, but Griffiths’ pen is mightier than this. She addresses all of these issues much more very subtly in beautiful prose with some Gabriel García Marquez-style magical realism. The plot unfolds in the isolated coastal community of Salt Point, Maine, where teenage sisters Hyacinth and Ezra have moved from Mississippi with their schoolteacher father and homemaker mother. Kind, caring aspirational and hardworking, both sisters achieve outstanding academic results but are constantly restricted in their daily lives by systemic violence and by predominantly white townspeople, the local sheriff force and even by their peers who never cease to try to banish the sisters into a subservient place. Will the love, care, nourishment and encouragement the sisters receive from their parents through shared wisdom, folklore and food make then strong enough to tackle the daily injustices of negotiating their way through a society that constantly rejects them based on superficial and outdated stereotypes whilst ignoring their wonderful personalities and potentials? At times, the novel makes for very hard reading but to a reader willing to engage with the issues it unveils, the insights are priceless.

I am very grateful to NetGalley and the publishers for the chance to read and review this unique and breathtaking debut novel, a work that should really feature on school syllabi and that deserves as wide and appreciate a readership as possible.

Promise, the debut novel by established poet Griffiths, has been tipped for a possible Booker longlisting, and I can see why.

It’s a lyrical, heartbreaking coming of age story of resistance and survival set in Maine in 1957 about the Kindred family, one of only two Black families living in their small town.

Jim Crow laws (enforcing racial segregation in the Southern US) were in place at the time, but discrimination was rife throughout the country.

In a small New England town, Sisters Ezra and Cinthy Kindred fight to protect their home, their family and their futures as the Civil Rights Movement sweeps the nation. What the Kindred family has endured for generations still reverberates, and a growing awareness of the fight that awaits them and for which their parents have tried to prepare them, slowly dawns on the girls over the summer of 1957 in their blossoming adolescence.

The book starts off pretty slow and simmers until the half way mark, when it suddenly reaches boiling point and becomes difficult to put down. The prose is lyrical and hypnotic - that Griffiths is a poet is obvious - and I found myself crying for much of the last quarter of the book.

Griffiths is married to Salman Rushdie, who himself is hotly tipped for Booker success for his latest novel Victory City. Would they be the first husband and wife duo to be longlisted in the same year? I’ll defer to some of my bookstagram Booker experts for the answer to that one!

An excellent read that I would recommend to anyone interested in the time period, subject matter, or who simply loves a brilliant and beautifully told story. 4/5⭐️

*Many thanks to @johnmurrays for the arc via @netgalley. As always, this is an honest review.*

A very enjoyable book and eye opening to me as I grew up in the same era in the uk. I struggled with how human beings can treat other human beings just because of their colour. The author has treated the topics with great compassion and must have experienced prejudice in their life. The story is centred around two families living on the edge of a small town in North America. Both fathers work at the local school, one as a teacher and the other as the caretaker. A delicate peace exists for these families until a teacher leaves and the new teacher is a relative of the local police chief. Their lives will never be the same again. Recommended a great read.

This was a beautifully written coming of age story about class, race, generational trauma and the bond of family.

The centre of this novel was the Kindred family who each responded to the hardships life threw at them in vastly different ways. I really felt immersed in their story at times and felt the characterisation in this novel was very strong.

There were really powerful, heartbreaking moments describing terrible, violent racism which were hard to read.

I did struggle a little with the way this book concluded. The way the author showed how the whole family's individual stories became a whole in the youngest generation was very poetic. However, I felt that too many threads had been left hanging leaving me wanting more.

The strength though of the Kindred family shines through in this novel showing that despite their devastation and destruction they will rise above it. Speaking for a people this was a powerful message.

This honest review is given with thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for this book.

It's not easy to review this book because it's powerful and stayed with in a sort of book hangover.
There's strong emotions, there's history in the making and cast of well plotted characters that you can love or hate but don't forget.
Loved it, one of the best debut in 2023
Highly recommended.
Many thanks to the publisher for this ARC, all opinions are mine

Promise by Rachel Eliza Griffiths is a book about family and racism. It shows how when people go through sad moments they may become stronger especially when you have family or friends that love you. I feel like there were too many sad moments and maybe some of those empathetic feelings got lost somewhere. It was a lovely story of two sisters who have to survive in system that only laughed at them. I didn't feel like they were much affected by the all protests/revolts from around the country. Yes, it was mentioned but the plot was not influenced by it, but by the white people from the city which with or without the protests/revolts would have acted the same. So, that gave me a moment where I was waiting for something to happen in connection to these but nothing happened.

I finsih this book with tears and a feeling of great sadness that tales like this have ever had to be a part of people's lives. It is the most beautiful, poignant and touching book I have read in many years and one that shall remain with me always. The strength in the face of such hatred, the love, family bonds, devotion and belief carried by the characters set against the suffering that humans are capable of inflicting on others show that love will always find a way.

I am ashamed that such hatred was ever allowed and even worse, does still exist in this world. But in the face of such evil, love remains and we all go onto a better and hopefully more kinder place. Thank you for allowing me to read and review this book.

A really super book that draws you in straight away. I really enjoyed reading and would recommend to anyone.

Thank you to the writer, publisher and NetGalley for allowing me to review this book.

This is a sensational book. A deep delve into life for black families in an all white town at the start of the Civil Rights Protests. It is a profound, intimate exploration into the feelings and relationships that surround a family, not only in the current generation but also from the legacy of ancestry. The most shocking thing about this read is the casual, violent racism that pervades a community and how it sets two families against the small world they live in yet have to endure extreme, belittling treatment with no recourse to law to prevent it. The final chapter is thought provoking, seeing the main character, Cinth, immersed in her grief yet finding solidarity in her ancestry, family and close friends which gives her the strength to carry on.

Oh, what a lovely book. It is no surprise to me that the author has previously written poetry as her language throughout is beautiful poetic.
I knew that this was going to be a great book as a third of the way through I already underlined three phrases and tweeted about the discovery of a fabulous novel.
This is the authors first novel and I for one will be keeping an eye on her as I’m sure future novels will be equally fabulous.
The story is told from a point of view of a number of characters, but particularly that of a 14-year-old girl. The author manages to switch between time periods, and from 1st to 3rd person, telling the story so well that I was always very clear who I was reading about and when.
The novel deals with some highly traumatic episodes, such as the death of the narrator’s relatives in a church fire, surrounded by children who are unable to escape. These awful episodes of man’s inhumanity in particular the treatment of black people by white people in early 20th-century America. are dealt with in a careful and nuanced way .Reading them could be highly traumatic to the reader,it’s a fine tight rope to walk and the author manages to do this extremely well . The novel has an optimistic, hopeful feel to it.
The authors characters throughout the novel are well developed and feel like real people .
I enjoyed the support character of a poor White trash neighbour who was initially friends with the main characters, and subsequently gets adopted by a local schoolteacher in a rather sinister fashion. I wanted to know what happened to this girl in the future. The friendship between her and the older of the two main female lead characters was central to the storyline.Her desire to escape her poor bringing and become a pilot is very memorable. The odds are very much against her achieving these goals, but you as a reader really want good things to happen to her.
There are some highly memorable scenes, for example the scene where the father tells the story of his great grandparents church burning whilst driving home in a storm in the car, having just been been harassed by the local white Policeman is really stunning
I often miss reading the author’s acknowledgements in novels, but I was very glad that I’d read these as her acknowledgements to have family in particular were some of the most beautiful sentiments I have read.
I would recommend this novel to those who enjoy a literary novel. in my view, this is a book which should be on the Booker prize long list. If you enjoyed the Underground Railway by Colston Whitehead Denman Copperfield by Barbara Kingsolver send this is the book for you
An early copy of the novel on NetGalley UK, the bookies released in the UK on the 11th of July 2023 by Random House UK..

This review will be published on Goodreads, NetGalley, UK, and on my book blog bionicSarahsbooks.wordpress.com.

THe main story here, about the Black sisters and their family, is finely (and terrifyingly) done. I'm slightly less sure about the subnarrative about their White friend (initially) Ruby; I can see what Griffiths is doing, but it felt a bit sketchily done and there's a touch of panto-villain about the appalling schoolteacher - given the horrific reality which was playing out across classrooms, I don't think this quite needed to be so heavy-handed because it becomes too easy to dismiss as caricature. A fine novel, though. Recommend.

This book is as beautiful in its simplicity as it is brutally honest in its portrayal of the racism faced by a young teenage black girl in the 1950s, living in a small, predominantly white community in Maine.

While their childhood is full of freedom, and the wholesome enjoyment of nature and the company of their immediate neighbours, Ezra and Cinthy Kindred are about to discover what coming of age means for a black girl. Even Ezra's best friend - a poor white girl named Ruby, who lives with her abusive father and indifferent mother - has different options in life than the two Kindred girls.

Growing up, the Kindreds, along with Junketts, are the only two black families in their area, and keep largely to themselves. But as change with a capital C - accompanied by the Civil Rights Movement - begins sweeping across America, even in their isolated area, white people begin to react to the two black families in their midst with greater hostility and a distinct tone of menace.

Cinthy and Ezra soon find themselves on the frontline of those attitudes, where the edges are sharp enough to draw blood. And the reader bleeds with and for them and the pain they must endure.

Parts of this story are heartbreaking, even as you wonder how many young black children, teenagers, men and women still come up against some version of these beliefs and behaviours. Promise is an important book - and sadly, no less relevant today then it was in the 1950s. Because while some things have certainly changed since then, others remain all too familiar...

I was drawn in by a rave review from Marlon James. I stayed for the absolutely beautiful writing, the devastating poetry of a story of two sisters -Ezra and Cinthy Kindred - but also of their community of Salt Point. Through alternating viewpoints, perspectives and histories, Rachel Eliza Griffiths delivers a truly monumental piece of work - all the more outstanding that it is a debut novel - which manages to say as much about the 1950s as it does today.

Thank you to the publishers and Netgalley for the ARC

There is no actual plot to this novel. It consists mostly of a series of the various characters' backstories about family history, origins and traditions. In between are poorly-written vignette-style episodes about a group of young people growing up and coming of age. The shifts of points of view to different characters and between first person and third person narration is done clumsily and feels more like an unpleasant mental jolt than simply signifying the start of a new chapter.

Disappointing, since the promotional blurb made this novel sound really promising. Sorry, it just wasn't for me.

Thank you to John Murray publishers and Netgalley for the ARC.