The Promise by Felice Stevens

Narrated by Kale Williams

Having very much enjoyed Fool for Love, book one in Felice Stevens’ Lost in New York series, I quickly jumped into book two, The Promise, a second-chance romance featuring Monroe Friedman, who runs the support group where Nate and Presley met in book one. We catch up with them briefly, and some of the other secondary characters have featured in other books by this author, but The Promise works perfectly well as a standalone.

Monroe – Roe – and Ezra Green were childhood sweethearts who were separated when Ezra’s parents moved their family from New York City to California when Ezra was seventeen. The guys were very much in love and knew they wanted to spend their lives together, so they promised each other that they would stay in touch, that Ezra would come back to New York after college, and then they’d begin their lives together. Things went okay at first and they exchanged letters regularly, but when, after a few months, Ezra stopped answering Roe’s letters, Roe scraped together the money to call him, only to be told that Ezra wasn’t interested in him anymore and that he’d started seeing other people. Needless to say, Roe was heartbroken at the discovery that the promises that meant so much to him meant nothing to Ezra.

Twenty-three years later, Roe is a college professor and counsellor, and he still lives in the same building he grew up in, a few doors down from his mother and grandmother, and Ezra is a top-flight talent agent working for his highly ambitious parents. He’s good-looking and wealthy, flitting from bed to bed and sometimes dating women just to keep his parents happy – but he’s not interested in anything long term, and has never forgotten Roe, no matter that things ended badly between them.

When The Promise opens, Ezra has returned to New York ostensibly to expand his parents’ agency, but also to branch out on his own a bit – and he’s determined to track down Roe and find out, once and for all, why Roe stopped answering his letters. Ezra is nervous about reconnecting, but nothing could have prepared him for Roe’s hostility when they do finally meet. Roe refuses to even talk to him – but, Ezra reasons, Roe is the one who broke it off all those years ago, so why is he so angry?

It’s not too hard to work out what must have happened, especially when we learn more about Ezra’s family and background, but Roe’s continual refusal to speak to Ezra about it or hear him out is a bit frustrating, especially as he’s a grown man of forty and not a sulky teenager. Also, Roe is a psychologist who specialises in counselling people dealing with grief and loss, and yet he employs none of the insight or perceptiveness he must surely possess to his own relationships. I know that’s not unusual – professional distance and detachment aren’t always easy to maintain with those close to us – but Roe is SO judgemental and unbending, and I found it a little over the top.

Ezra makes one, last-ditch attempt to speak to Roe one evening, and goes to his apartment building. Roe is having dinner with his mother and grandmother (who live down the hall) when Ezra turns up; they remember Ezra fondly (not knowing how things really ended between him and Roe) and encourage Roe to see him. And at last the truth comes out. Roe tells Ezra he kept writing and about the phone call with Ezra’s mother – which Ezra knew nothing about – but Ezra finds it hard to believe that he could have been so horribly deceived. He knows his parents never really liked Roe – Roe’s family wasn’t wealthy or well-connected enough for them – but hearing Roe actually say it aloud is hard to take, and Ezra outright accuses Roe of lying – even though he knows, deep down, that there’s most likely more than a grain of truth to what Roe is telling him.

Circumstances conspire to throw Roe and Ezra together again, and slowly they begin to work their way back to one another, to learn who they are now and rediscover their love for each other. It’s not an easy road – they have to confront years of hurt and misconception and learn to trust one another again – but even as they’re going through it, the one thing that really shines through is that these two men belong together. I’m discovering, as I read/listen to more books by this author that she has a wonderful way of writing angsty, heartfelt romances featuring characters who have been around the block a few times and who, while wary of being hurt, still long to find a true, soul-deep connection with another person.

I liked both characters, although it took a while longer for me to warm to Roe because he was so intractable to start with and his behaviour towards Ezra was so hurtful. Ezra, I liked off the bat; he’s a decent guy whose relationships – with friends and clients – are important to him, and I liked his self-awareness and his willingness to put himself out there in order to get to the bottom of what happened all those years ago, even though it brings a number of painful truths to light.

I did have a problem with one aspect of the storyline here, because it seemed overly contrived and somewhat overdone. It also involves a degree of manipulation on the part of a secondary character that I wasn’t wild about, but leaving that aside, I enjoyed the story, and continue to be impressed with the author’s ability to create interesting, flawed, three-dimensional characters who think and feel deeply.

Kale Williams returns to the narrator’s chair for this second instalment in the series, and delivers another emotionally resonant and insightful performance. As in Fool for Love, his pacing is good and he differentiates effectively between all the characters, the deeper, slightly gruff tones he employs for Roe a nice contrast to the lighter tone he gives Ezra, expertly conveying Ezra’s openness and good-natured optimism. The New York Jewish accents are well done (to my English ears!) and there are more female characters in this book than in the previous one, most notably Roe’s ninety-year-old grandmother Nettie, a feisty old broad if ever there was one (!). Mr Williams portrays her quite well, lending her voice a slight tremor that speaks to her advanced age, and does a more than decent job with his characterisations of Roe’s mother and Ezra’s, a cold, self-important woman whose unpleasantness is more than accurately reflected in her dismissive tone. It’s a well-judged, expressive performance all round which, once again, brings the story to vibrant life and enhances the emotional connection between the two principals.

The Promise is a warm and tender character-driven romance between two quite different men who are imperfectly perfect for each other. If you’re a fan of second chances, it’s well worth picking up.

Caz

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