mirandawood 's review for:

Promise Not to Tell by Jennifer McMahon

3.25

adventurous challenging dark mysterious sad tense slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: No

Loveable characters: No

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: No

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This was very middle-of-the-road for me. I can tell that this is Mcmahon’s debut novel because the others I’ve read from her were definitely better. It wasn’t bad, it just had so many different elements to it. There was a little coming of age in seeing the time jump from past and present, a little paranormal, and definitely was murder/mystery. I love all of those so of course I picked this up when I saw it. But as I got through it, it seems to be too many for only 250 pages. Big chunks were focused on just the coming of age aspect, or just the paranormal, when really all I wanted to know what who the murderer was! And we do of course in the end, but it get rushed. There wasn’t much development in the mystery part of this until the last 50 or so pages and then suddenly all questions are answered. Again, it’s nice to not to be left with unanswered questions, I just would have liked to have thoroughly explored more or the murder/mystery, done more investigating, more clues, more suspects.