NEW EVENTS

Promise Not to Tell by Jennifer McMahon

In brief: Kate Cypher has returned home to Vermont, after a telephone call from friends who are worried about her mother’s failing health. On the night she arrives, a young girl is murdered, a horrific crime that eerily mirrors another from Kate’s childhood.

Three decades earlier, her misfit friend Del, shunned and derided by her classmates as ‘the potato girl’, was brutally slain. The killer was never found, and Del achieved immortality in local legends and ghost stories.

In detail: Slowly Kate is drawn into the investigation – and deep into the childhood she’s tried so hard to escape. In Del, 10-year-old Kate had found a kindred spirit, until, shortly before Del’s death, a painful falling-out shattered their relationship.

Now, as the investigation unfolds, the facets of Kate’s life collide in a terrifying way. Her mother is quickly deteriorating, and sometimes hardly recognises her daughter at all. Her old friends are not quite what they seem, and appear to resent the fact that Kate moved away. Even worse, the ghosts of Kate’s childhood have emerged to haunt her.

Someone knows what happened all those years ago – someone who knows all about Del . . .

About the author

Jennifer McMahon grew up in suburban Connecticut, and graduated from Goddard College in 1991. Over the years, she has been a house painter, farm worker, paste-up artist, pizza delivery person, homeless shelter staff member, and has worked with mentally ill adults and children in a few different capacities. Currently, she lives in Vermont with her partner and daughter.

For discussion

  • ‘I killed someone tonight.’ How did this statement shape your first impressions of Kate? Does her confession make her more trustworthy, or less so?
  • Del and Kate are both outsiders, but in different ways. What differences and similarities are there between the two girls?
  • Why do you think Del has achieved such mythic status in the town, and what role do you think this plays in how people view the second murder?
  • Kate says that once she loves someone, it’s for life. How does the Nicky Kate meets as an adult compare to the Nicky she knew as a child? How have her feelings for him changed?
  • What do you think the sheriff’s star symbolises? Are there other talismans in the book?
  • How were you affected by Del? As you learn more and more about the secrets she kept, do you see her as a strong person or someone that needed to be protected?
  • At one point, Kate confesses that if she could go back and change any part of her life, the two moments she would redo take place on the day Del was killed. How does Kate’s guilt over what happened that final day shape the woman she becomes?
  • Promise Not To Tell takes place in the fictional town of New Canaan, Vermont. Much of the book is set at New Hope and the Griswolds’ farm down the road. How important is the setting in the story?
  • Kate is a sceptic who struggles to find rational explanations for the bizarre events that begin happening to her. Would the story be different if she weren’t so sceptical? Were you, as a reader, sceptical as well?
  • All of the main characters are keeping secrets, some dangerous, some incriminating, some shameful. What importance do these secrets have in the story? Is there power in keeping a secret? Honour?
  • The final chapter is told from Opal’s point of view. Why do you think the author chose to make this shift?
  • Promise Not To Tell interweaves past and present from chapter to chapter. How did this affect your reading of the story? Do you think this was an effective structure?

Suggested further reading

Sharp Objects by Gillian Flynn
The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd
What the Dead Know by Laura Lippman
The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold