The Promise

The 'BurgThe PromiseKristen Ashley

Sep 29

Written by Ally Talley

The ‘Burg #5

By Kristen Ashley

~ Do not recommend reading as a standalone ~

~ First, read At Peace (book #2) for best experience ~

TheStory

Heading backwards in The ‘Burg timeline, Frankie has just been shot and she is now being released from the hospital, allowed to go home. But Benny Bianchi has different plans - Frankie will convalesce at his house, where he can keep an eye on her.

Benny has always had a thing for Frankie, but since she had been with his brother, Benny never acted on those feelings. Now, it’s been seven years since his brother’s death and Benny realises that his beliefs about the circumstances surrounding that have been wholly incorrect. Having blamed Frankie for his brother’s death for the past seven years, Benny has some serious work to do if he wants Frankie to let him in.

TheReview

Confused? Me too.

Here’s the basics (since it was THREE BOOKS AGO!).

Frankie got shot while protecting Violet, Cal’s woman. The Bianchi family is related to Cal. Benny is Cal’s cousin. The Bianchi’s own the pizzeria in Chicago that Cal took Violet and her girls to in At Peace.

So this story revolves around Frankie and Benny getting over the family (Benny included) having blamed Frankie for the past seven years because her man, Vinnie, made bad choices that got him dead.

Over the years, Frankie has carried around a lot of guilt surrounding Vinnie’s death, and her overcoming that, as well as letting Benny in, is the main premise of the book. And that’s essentially where we start in The Promise.

I had to go to DaddyChat (ChatGPT) to get some of this info because I could not for the life of me remember.

So, needless to say, I’m not the biggest fan of the book, but how did Kristen Ashely expect us to remember what happened like 1600 pages ago?! With BARELY any reminders.

Basically, Benny seemed to expect Frankie to just “forgive and forget.” And she basically did. And then they were more or less happy for 400 pages.

Frankie did have her issues that she was dealing with internally due to her bad past and relationship with Vinnie. But that was the most drama this book had.

I enjoyed some of it but I was bored out of my brains by the half way mark. I kept waiting for something to happen. Plot development. Character development. Drama. Nothing really did, other than Frankie overcoming her “demons,” which is in quotations because I found her internal issues to be boring and not interesting or deep.

The whole middle is just Benny and Frankie going back and forth being sweet, working out their relationship (but like in a generic way), living their life, etc. etc. etc. YAWN

I enjoyed the first half more than I thought I would considering I barely even remembered these characters' origin story.

So, the middle was fine, if not lackluster. By page 575, I was torturously bored. Started skimming about that mark because the last part could have been a 20 page epilogue, and I would have been perfectly happy with that.

Enjoyed the first half, then I wasn’t that into it, then I was mind-numbingly over it.