Sometimes, when she wasn’t imagining herself with a frying pan in her hands, she pictured herself screaming, her mouth wide open, her eyes bulging nearly out of their sockets. The temptation to scream was growing harder to resist. But she mustn’t give in to it. Do that and she might lose it and never stop screaming.
Not Losing It was one of her New Year’s resolutions. Along with: Do Something New. Learn To Stand Up For Myself. Lose Weight.
Other than Not Losing It, she had done nothing about the resolutions, but it was only the third of January, so early days.
(from Promises, Promises, page 2 in the uncorrected advance copy; finished version may be different)
Promises, Promises was just the book I needed to get me back in the reading groove since coming back from my grandmother’s funeral. Despite being what some would call “chick lit,” Erica James puts her characters in more serious situations than you would expect from such a novel, though she writes these heavier themes with a light hand.
Promises, Promises revolves around three characters. Maggie Storm, a thirty-something house cleaner unhappy in her 17-year marriage to Dave, a.k.a. Mr. Blobby, who pretty much ignores her until he needs clean clothes, dinner, or a beer. Her only friends are her mother’s eccentric group, The Sisters of Fun, an eccentric, fun-loving bunch of gals, and Mrs. Oates, her elderly neighbor. Out with The Sisters of Fun one evening, she wins a big bingo prize and decides to put some money away for herself. When she begins to fantasize about the handsome man she meets through Mrs. Oates’ boyfriend, Maggie starts to see herself in a new light…but she can’t seem to stand up for herself when it comes to her husband and his horrid, insult-slinging mother.
Meanwhile, Ella Moore is a specialist painter hired by Francine Edwards to create a fairy tale dining room, and she becomes friends with Maggie, who cleans the Edwards’ home. Ella has just left a seven-year relationship with Lawrence, a widower with two children, one of whom never liked Ella and did all she could to push Ella out of their lives. After Ella helps Ethan Edwards, Francine’s husband, during a mugging (not knowing he was her employer), she hesitantly agrees to become Ethan’s friend — a move that creates waves when Lawrence’s daughter has a change of heart and wants Ella to come back to the family.
Ethan also is unhappy in his marriage, and when you meet the snobby, classist, and bitchy Francine, you kind of can’t blame him for having been unfaithful in the past. However, Ethan realizes that the one-night stands haven’t made him happy and puts an end to them. What he really wants is a friend, and with his company on the brink of financial ruin, his marriage in shambles, and his wife’s best friend throwing herself at him, he really needs someone to talk to.
James has created characters that are both likeable and extremely flawed, which made their situations feel real to me. Many times throughout the book I wanted to throttle them for their blindness. James really drives home the point that if you’re unhappy with your life and just going through the motions, you are the only one who can change that. And you have to be willing to take a chance, even if you don’t know how it will all turn out.
Promises, Promises is exactly what you would expect from a “chick lit” novel. There’s humor, romance, and sex (though nothing graphic), and of course, a certain level of predictability. While I didn’t love it like I love Jill Mansell’s novels, it was an enjoyable, escapist read — perfect for when there’s a lot going on in your life and you want some mindless fun.
Disclosure: I received a copy of Promises, Promises from Sourcebooks for review. I am an IndieBound affiliate and an Amazon associate.
© 2011 Anna Horner of Diary of an Eccentric. All Rights Reserved. Please do not reproduce or republish content without permission.