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Broken Promises
"Your father was killed yesterday," said the Marine. And twelve-year-old Hazel Whitmore's world begins collapsing around her.
Hazel won't believe her father is dead and buries her emotions and memories in a block of ice deep inside herself. She protects this ice with flames of anger that flare up at any annoyance.
Money is scarse now. Hazel babysits four-year-old Bobby. Does he, at four, hold the key to Hazel's new life? If he does, is she brave enough to use it?
Hazel won't believe her father is dead and buries her emotions and memories in a block of ice deep inside herself. She protects this ice with flames of anger that flare up at any annoyance.
Money is scarse now. Hazel babysits four-year-old Bobby. Does he, at four, hold the key to Hazel's new life? If he does, is she brave enough to use it?
207 pages, Paperback
First published February 6, 2013
5 people want to read
About the author
Karen GoatKeeper
22 books35 followersThe year is melting away. There will be a new picture book: "Ducks Love Hats" from a Creating Picture Books class I held over the summer.
For my own writing, I have started the first of the Opal and Agate series of picture books. The Carduan Chronicles will end up a series of four books. The draft for Ship Eighteen is almost done, although there are a couple of things to check on still.
Life's Rules is getting close to done. However, this book will need input from at least three people before the draft is done. Other people are not always reliable in a timely manner.
Weather has brought many problems this year including floods and drought. The goats and garden have had problems from this.
For my own writing, I have started the first of the Opal and Agate series of picture books. The Carduan Chronicles will end up a series of four books. The draft for Ship Eighteen is almost done, although there are a couple of things to check on still.
Life's Rules is getting close to done. However, this book will need input from at least three people before the draft is done. Other people are not always reliable in a timely manner.
Weather has brought many problems this year including floods and drought. The goats and garden have had problems from this.
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
March 26, 2014
Perhaps it’s because I’ve read two books featuring middle school protagonists recently (after decades of not reading any) that I find a lot in common between them. Like Annette Drake’s Bone Girl, Karen GoatKeeper’s Broken Promises is about a young girl coming of age against the backdrop of a family crisis. In both books, a loss of a parent from the household becomes the emotional focus, as well as a crucial point in a series of unfortunate events that lead to financial disaster.
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.
As other reviewers have mentioned, this is a first novel. 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. (Note: I read the Smashwords ebook edition published Feb 2013. Didn't see it listed here, but assume it's basically the same edition.)
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.
As other reviewers have mentioned, this is a first novel. 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. (Note: I read the Smashwords ebook edition published Feb 2013. Didn't see it listed here, but assume it's basically the same edition.)
January 1, 2014
I liked this story pretty well and found the book worth reading. It's a realistic novel aimed toward a middle-school audience. Not being of that persuasion, I may not know anything, but... It seems like the story is relevant to modern young people and their situations: fathers in Iraq, strife among relatives, school, baby-sitting, etc. The prose throughout is clean and terse, pretty well edited. Sometimes the spare prose borders on being somewhat choppy (but that could partly be because I'm coming at it from an adult perspective).
The main weakness of the book I think is in the middle one-third or so. I felt it dwelt too much on details of baby-sitting and daily meal activity, with somewhat repetitive results. At times, therefore, important plot points are obscured by being buried within longish passages of high similarity. It could have been more tightly paced in the middle to more clearly delineate the story arc. This is a novel about life transition and is leading toward a "part two" book that takes the characters into a new situation, but it takes far too long to "get there", and I wonder if the target audience might get lost in the middle.
This is a self-published work, and I want to specifically praise the excellent copy-editing. I spotted only three innocuous typographical errors in the whole book, which puts this at least in the 99th percentile for editorial cleanliness. I'm giving 3 stars for how much I liked the story generally, and a bonus star to the copy-editor.
The main weakness of the book I think is in the middle one-third or so. I felt it dwelt too much on details of baby-sitting and daily meal activity, with somewhat repetitive results. At times, therefore, important plot points are obscured by being buried within longish passages of high similarity. It could have been more tightly paced in the middle to more clearly delineate the story arc. This is a novel about life transition and is leading toward a "part two" book that takes the characters into a new situation, but it takes far too long to "get there", and I wonder if the target audience might get lost in the middle.
This is a self-published work, and I want to specifically praise the excellent copy-editing. I spotted only three innocuous typographical errors in the whole book, which puts this at least in the 99th percentile for editorial cleanliness. I'm giving 3 stars for how much I liked the story generally, and a bonus star to the copy-editor.
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