ShortBookandScribes #BookReview – The Forbidden Promise by Lorna Cook @AvonBooksUK #BlogTour
Welcome to my review stop on the blog tour for Lorna Cook’s brand new book, The Forbidden Promise. My thanks to Sanjana from Avon for the place on the tour and for sending a review copy of the book.
Can one promise change the fate of two women decades apart?
Scotland, 1940
War rages across Europe, but Invermoray House is at peace – until the night of Constance’s 21st birthday, when she’s the only person to see a Spitfire crash into the loch. Rescuing the pilot and vowing to keep him hidden, Constance finds herself torn between duty to her family and keeping a promise that could cost her everything.
2020
Kate arrives in the Highlands to turn Invermoray into a luxury B&B, only to find that the estate is more troubled than she’d imagined. But when Kate discovers the house has a dark history, with Constance’s name struck from its records, she knows she can’t leave until the mystery is solved . . .
A sweeping tale of love and secrets, perfect for fans of Kate Morton and Lucinda Riley.
I really enjoyed Lorna Cook’s first book, The Forgotten Village, and so I was keen to read her second offering, The Forbidden Promise. It’s a dual timeframe book, set in 1940 and 2020.
The setting is the picturesque Loch Invermoray and the beautiful Invermoray House where in 1940 Constance is celebrating her 21st birthday. Escaping from her party she goes to the loch and is there to see a fighter plane crash into the water. She manages to help free the pilot and, at his request, she hides him in the ghillie’s cottage.
80 years later and Invermoray House is rather faded and has been left to get in a bit of a state by the current residents. Kate is a PR person who has been drafted in to help turn it into a B&B but she finds she’s bitten off more than she can chew, both with the house and with the owner’s son, James, with whom she doesn’t get off to a great start.
I really loved the idea of Invermoray House, by the loch side. I thought the author really brought it off the page for me and I could imagine both the faded grandeur of the current day alongside the opulence and beauty of how it looked in 1940. Like so many grand houses, it had lost its way but I was fascinated by the plans Kate had to bring it back to life.
And the story? I thought it was lovely, not particularly deep, but really pleasant to read. As is often the case, I preferred the modern day story, which I think is because I like to see the secrets of the past being discovered. Perhaps it’s the nosiness in me. I do like to see a mystery being solved, and the mystery here is why, as Kate discovers, Constance was disowned by her family and her name struck out of the family bible. The 1940 story is gorgeous though. I won’t give away what unfolds but you can probably guess. Although I have to say there was a very unexpected twist in the tale and not the one I was expecting at all.
Lorna Cook has a delightful writing style. She’s easy to read and plots a lovely dual timeframe story.
Lorna Cook is the author of the Kindle Number 1 Bestseller ‘The Forgotten Village’, which was her debut novel, staying in the Kindle Top 100 for four months. It has sold over 150,000 copies, has eleven overseas/foreign language editions, won the Romantic Novelists’ Association Joan Hessayon Award for New Writers and was shortlisted for the RNA Katie Fforde Debut Romantic Novel of the Year Award.
Her second novel, ‘The Forbidden Promise’ is now available to order in paperback and ebook.
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