Broken Promises
- Category: Fiction » Children’s books » Fiction
- Category: Fiction » Young adult or teen » Family
- Published: Feb. 6, 2013
- Words: 65,780
- Language: English
- ISBN: 9781301983995
Life throws some dandy monkeywrenches sometimes. Overcoming the damage can take time. But my next novel needs to happen. It's half done.
Nature is calling as the wildflowers are blooming. My botany project books are filling in one plant at a time. There are only a thousand or so to go. I love a challenge.
Don't expect my books to be the same. Most are far different from any of the others. Challenge yourself with science investigations and puzzles in the Project books. Find out about goats in Goat Games, Capri Capers and Dora's Story. For Love of Goats shows their humorous side along with challenging your vocabulary and diction (I love alliteration and tongue twisters.).
Go on a virtual nature vacation through photography in Exploring the Ozark Hills or My Ozark Home. Pique a child's interest in nature with Waiting For Fairies.
Try the novels for some light reading.
There's lots to choose from.
Tweet
Reviews of Broken Promises by Karen GoatKeeper
In Broken Promises, the interestingly-named Hazel has been living a relatively comfortable life in New York City. She lives close enough to Central Park for daily visits, attends private school, and the family manages on her father’s income and investments. A reservist in the Marines, her father is unexpectedly called to active duty. Just before he ships out to Iraq, he rashly promises Hazel that he’ll be home in a year. It's a promise that couldn't realistically be kept, which everyone except Hazel seems to know.
When her father is killed in action, she is intensely angry. Despite their close relationship – or perhaps, because of it – her anger is directed almost solely at him and the broken promise. She refuses to talk about him or join her mother in mourning. Instead, she becomes focused on how to maintain her life as it's always been.
Hazel’s efforts to supplement her mother’s meager temporary income with babysitting can't stop the family's downward slide into financial crisis, particularly when they learn that there is little left from the investment accounts. She does what she can, learning to cook and taking on household tasks like shopping, in hopes that she won’t have to leave her school and her friends. But the reader knows long before Hazel does that nothing she can do can hold off the inevitable. All the familiar aspects of her life must change.
This is a first novel, for the writer and a series. The story is compelling, despite the occasional phrasing in the beginning. Once the author found her stride, the story flowed very smoothly. I occasionally raised my eyebrows at names and social media references that seemed a little anachronistic or unusual, but acknowledge that it’s been awhile since I’ve had interactions of any length with someone in middle school. It could be that I’m terribly out of touch with the world as experienced by adolescents of today. In any case, I am invested enough in Hazel’s story to want to follow it in the next book of the series, so I’ve added Old Promises to my reading list.
A must read!!! Can't put this book down! Already looking forward to part 2 to Broken Promises!