Blog Tour: The Promise Between Us by Barbara Claypole White

The Promise Between Us
by Barbara Claypole White

Publication date: January 16th 2018
Publisher: Lake Union Publishing
Pages: 369

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Another week, another blog tour!

Today it’s my stop on the “The Promise Between Us” blog tour with Rachel’s Random Resources who provided me with a copy of this book in exchange for my honest review. If you’d like to learn more about this book, check out the other blogs on the tour, see what people have to say on Goodreads and head over to the author’s website.

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Summary:

Metal artist Katie Mack is living a lie. Nine years ago she ran away from her family in Raleigh, North Carolina, consumed by the irrational fear that she would harm Maisie, her newborn daughter. Over time she’s come to grips with the mental illness that nearly destroyed her, and now funnels her pain into her art. Despite longing for Maisie, Katie honors an agreement with the husband she left behind—to change her name and never return.

But when she and Maisie accidentally reunite, Katie can’t ignore the familiarity of her child’s compulsive behavior. Worse, Maisie worries obsessively about bad things happening to her pregnant stepmom. Katie has the power to help, but can she reconnect with the family she abandoned?

To protect Maisie, Katie must face the fears that drove her from home, accept the possibility of love, and risk exposing her heart-wrenching secret.

Source: Goodreads

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Thoughts:

“The Promise Between Us” has been a real education for me. Telling the story of Katie Mack, a woman who walked out on family as a result of her own mental illness, I feel like I have learned a lot. Katie has OCD, which until reading this book I thought was related to excessive cleanliness or a compulsion to do something a certain number of times. Little did I know, OCD is so much more than that.

“If you leave your newborn child because you have unstoppable thoughts of harming her, are you a good mother or a terrible one?”

This multi-perspective story is both heartbreaking and heartwarming, delivering a powerful message to the reader from all sides of the story. There are five main characters and five perspectives to see this story from, each affected by Katie’s mental illness in some way. It’s certainly not a light read, but it’s an important story to tell.

I enjoyed this story a lot and I’d recommend it for fans of Jodi Picoult, an author who has highly praised this book and whose books follow the same structure, giving each character their own named chapters. I’d also recommend this book for those looking to learn and understand a little more about this topic as, while I don’t have any experience of OCD myself, this feels to be a pretty realistic account that a lot of research and personal experience has gone in to.

Overall rating: “The Promise Between Us” is a powerful and educational story which addresses the less well-known side of OCD and explores how such an illness can affect a family. I’m giving this book 4 stars – thanks again to Rachel at Rachel’s Random Resources and author Barbara Claypole White for the opportunity to read this book!

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