Book Review: Anna’s Promise, by Pauline Tait
Having reviewed and much enjoyed Abigail Returns, the first book in the Maren Bay series by Perthshire-based author Pauline Tait, I’d been aware the Anna’s Promise was on the horizon for some time. The books are interlinked yet standalone romantic suspense stories set on the Isle of Skye, and I’d long ago committed to reviewing book number two. Abigail’s Promise, if you like. I was looking forward to it.
With this second book, I could see the author has grown even more adept at creating suspense, and I found it slightly more polished and sure-footed than the first book, good as that was. There’s elements I fondly recognised too — lots of hot chocolates being sipped outside, curling up next to log burners, a beautiful house shrouded in mystery, and the landscape of Skye taking on a character of its own. Of course, it helps when you’re able to picture many of the places mentioned! I too have hunted for dinosaur footprints near Staffin. It’s also pleasing to get some nuggets of info about how Abigail, the heroine of the first book, is getting along.
Anna is a different protagonist from Abigail, in that she’s not motivated by desperation, but more by grief over the loss of her mother, the only family she’s ever known, and an aching sense of loneliness. The finding of a letter from her mother starts Anna off on her journey of discovery, but she’s hesitant to start with, not quite sure what she is looking to get from it. She wants to ask questions but doesn’t always want to hear the answers, which makes her an unusual and quite nuanced heroine in many ways, and one it’s easy to relate to.
As Anna tries to unravel her mother’s past on the island, the mystery surrounding her reasons for leaving seems to get deeper and more involved, and there’s the added complication of many of the characters clearly being not quite what they seem, plus she has her feelings for the moody yet attractive Hamish to make sense of.
The reader occasionally feels a step ahead of Anna, who can be a little slow on the uptake, but you sense the author is two steps further ahead still, meaning you are right in the middle of the story. We are also sometimes given more information than what we know Anna has—all this adds an extra layer of urgency to the reading, as you will Anna to draw the conclusions you already have.
This book is a real page turner and definitely keeps you guessing. Pauline Tait gradually reveals her solutions through old photos, newspaper clippings, reticent conversations and overheard whispers in an expert manner, plus there’s an exciting showdown at the end. Once I started it I couldn’t put it down!
Abigail received a free copy of the book for the purpose of this review
