Your Promise

A spellbinding novel about a writer who breaks a promise and faces the implications of penning the story of a shattered romantic relationship.

Your Promise, an exciting new novel by award-winning French writer, Camille Laurens, packs one helluva punch! This riveting psychological thriller examines self-awareness when played out amidst the memory of a shattered, long-term romantic relationship. 

The story launches with 50-year-old, Claire Lancel, who writes the story of an old love, Gilles Fabian—this despite her once making a promise to never to share details about him, his domineering, narcissist proclivities, and/or their relationship. 

Readers know right from the start that the story of Claire and Gilles will not end well, but that is precisely the hook.  Claire conveys her story from prison. Why is she incarcerated? What did she do? 

These questions drive a masterfully constructed narrative rooted in a legal court case that slowly divvies out details about the lovers. This includes witness testimonies that trace--and often contradict--the story of an idyllic and seductive relationship, where emotion and passion turn to pain, and “love” succumbs to terminal insidiousness. Claire ultimately becomes a victim of control that forces her to grapple with hard truths about who she was and who she is; her choices and mistakes; and the meaning of her now reduced life. 

Laurens (In His Arms, Girl) renders her story with spellbinding suspense. She sets up a broad canvas then gradually zooms in closer and closer on stark details that ultimately trap and ensnare her characters--and surprise readers.

Your Promise by Camille Laurens (Translated from the French by Adriana Hunter)

Other Press, Paperback $18.99, 978163545734, 400 pages

Publication Date: May 12, 2026

To order this novel on Bookshop.org, link HERE

 

Learn more about Camille Laurens and her work HERE

 

Siracusa

An intimate, suspenseful story of two American couples--whose marriages are in crisis--vacationing in Sicily.

Delia Ephron (Sister Mother Husband Dog: Etc.) turns an idyllic Sicilian vacation upside-down in Siracusa, a novel about two sophisticated American couples in their 40s. Told through shifting timelines and four points of view, the story reveals the couples' shared history and the restlessness they are facing in their respective marriages. 

Lizzie and Michael, struggling writers, are a childless couple from New York. Lizzie is a long-form journalist, and Michael is a famous author and riveting raconteur who secretly wants out of the marriage, as he is in love with a younger woman. Finn and Taylor are from Maine. Their daughter, Snow, is tagging along on the trip; she is a beautiful but deeply repressed--and impressionable--10-year-old, with a condition called "Extreme Shyness Syndrome." Finn owns a restaurant and is resentful of Taylor, a cultured heiress who smothers their daughter with care and attention. Finn, too, harbors secret romantic longings of his own. Upping the ante is the fact that Lizzie and Finn were once an item. The two perpetually flirt with each other, provoking the ire of their spouses.

Ephron writes colorful repartee and backhanded insults, revealing the foursome's jealousies, lies and betrayals that further ignite when an unexpected visitor crashes their holiday. The atmospheric details of historic Sicily serve as a remarkable backdrop to the characters' personal conflicts, rendering Siracusa as a dark, psychologically astute story about the limits of marriage and friendship.

Siracusa: A Novel by Delia Ephron

Blue Rider Press, $26.00 Hardcover, 9780399165214, 304 pages

Publication Date:  July 12, 2016

To order this book on INDIEBOUND, click HERE

NOTE: This review is a reprint and is being posted with the permission of Shelf Awareness. To read this review on Shelf Awareness: Reader's Edition (July 22, 2016 ), link HERE