Passion’s Promise (1977): Promise Fulfilled
Hello, Steel Millers! Welcome back to another edition of the world’s most insane book club! We’ll be covering Passion’s Promise, the book that put Danielle Steel on the map, and for very very good reason.
First, a bit of housekeeping.
So originally, my plan was to write an article a week, two reviews, and two general romance articles.
However, since I have approximately 76 jobs (yay freelance life), my new schedule is, I’ll post a review when I have finished the book!
That means least one review a month, and I’ll pop in with one off articles when inspiration strikes, because the last thing I want to do is leave you, my dear fans, in the Land of the Dead Blogs. But, I gotta get that cash money, so apologies if you do not see my shining face as much as you’d wish.
Now, to the review!
Our heroine for this book is Kezia Saint Martin, a beautiful New York socialite with an ancient name, and a secret: she moonlights as *GASP* a writer! She runs a column under a pseudonym that spreads gossip about her hoity-toity friends, but her passion project is hard-hitting journalism about social issues that are too gauche for her social set to throw a fancy charity ball for.
Only two people know about her secret life: her editor, and her long-suffering caretaker, Edward, who has a creepy daddy-crush on her. More on that later.
Kezia’s editor convinces her to interview Lucas Johns, an ex-con and prison activist who’s just released a book that has heads spinning, and the feds trying to silence him Kezia balks at the idea of an in-person interview because it’ll destroy her secret identity, but is eventually persuaded when her editor convinces her she can’t hide forever.
She meets Lucas and, predictably, they fall head over heels in love after some healthy stalking on Luke’s part. They spend their days in a whirlwind, him introducing her to true activism, and her finally letting her guard down enough to explain her Tragic Backstory: her mother ran off with her French tutor when she was 10, her dad, humiliated, committed sort-of suicide by driving recklessly, and her mother, exiled from the life of privilege, drinks herself to death. This left Kezia unnaturay famous and wealthy before her teenage years, and under the care of Edward, who looks after her estates and tries to instill in her the dangers of dating below her station and not playing into the demands of her family name.
But family be damned, Kezia is in love, and throughout the course of the book, dumps her obviously gay boyfriend, and her artist hunk in Greenwich Village to become a full-time Mrs. Lucas Johns.
But when a prison riot gets out of control, Luke’s parole is revoked, and he’s sent back to San Quentin, where he immediately gets shanked in the yard, and Kezia falls onto replacement-boyfriend Alejandro for support. (If that plot point felt like it came out of nowhere, don’t worry, it does in the book, too.)
For starters, this is a fantastic book. Written four years after Going Home, it’s clear that Steel honed her craft to a razor sharp edge, and the proof is in the pudding.
Kezia is a fully fleshed-out character that it’s easy to give a shit about. She sometimes falls into “poor little rich girl” syndrome, but is also self-aware enough that it’s not The Worst. Unlike with Gillian Forrester, Kezia’s backstory is explained and actually develops her character: we see the world she’s desperately trying to escape, and why it’s so dreadfully dull for someone with the brains of a Kezia Saint Martin.
The side characters are also great foils and reflections of Kezia. One of my favorites is her friend Tiffany, who is a barely functioning alcoholic, who eventually jumps off a building after she loses her kids to her overbearing mother-in-law. We see in Tiffany the consequences of the gilded cage of New York: when you’re given nothing but privilege and nothing to care for, what is life really worth living? Edward could easily have become a wicked stepmother type character, but his love (however weird and creepy it is) is clear, and his feeling of duty not just to Kezia, but to her family honor explained throughly.
This book is written in omniscient third-person as opposed to Going Home’s first-person, and it’s to the books advantage. We get to follow around most of the side characters, and learn about their internal struggles, which gives the world more depth, and explains motivations well.
The love story between Kezia and Lucas is miles and above better than Gillian and Chris. Where Chris was just a flighty, emotionally abusive pretty boy, Lucas has a genuine respect for Kezia’s work, and instead of demanding she just leave her world for him, he understands her need for secrecy, even as he tries to ease it out from her. He also fully understands that he is dangerous to her, and tries to protect her. He trusts her as an individual and an equal, and it’s a refreshing coupling after the Going Home pair. It’s easy to fall in love with Lucas. His Tragic Backstory (a wife who killed herself after he was sent to prison and their daughter died) informs his character, but he doesn’t harden himself to love right off the bat. He has a passion for his work, and a genuine desire to see justice done in the world. He’s a great hero for this novel.
The writing in the novel is a massive improvement, overall. Instead of just a blow-by-blow of boring events in a boring couples life, we really get into the psychology of the characters, and there are some turns of phrase that are truly quite beautiful. Especially as we get more into Tiffany’s story, it’s heartbreaking, and frankly, I’d love a novel all about her life.
And then. The ending.
It’s not that it’s a bad ending. Kezia’s grieving process is more complex than Gillian’s. She travels the world, truly alone for the first time in her life, and heals after reading Luke’s new book in her aunt’s villa and yes I cried, leave me alone.
But, yet again, we have the heroine running off with a replacement boyfriend. Kind of.
Alejandro is one of Luke’s social work friends who Kezia strikes a friendship with, and who is her replacement boyfriend when Luke sends her back to New York when The Heat is on his tail in San Fransisco. He falls in love with her, she doesn’t notice until Luke is in prison and she’s like “eh. He’ll do, I guess.”
The last page of the novel, however, makes it clear that Kezia plans to get with Alejandro now that he’s less broken, but her main goal is to finally live for herself.
It’s a strange trope in Steel novels so far. Hero dies, heroine hooks up with dude who is like kind of a love interest but not really in the book.
But this book does make clear what I think Danielle Steel was trying and failing to introduce in Going Home: a heroine who is living for herself, and not for love. And that seems to involve, thematically, the death of love.
Kezia’s story arc is to start living for herself, on her own terms, and Luke may have been the catalyst for that change, but to settle down in marriage with him would just be her exchanging one gilded cage for another, in Steel’s mind. Losing Luke, that great love of her life, is proof to Kezia that she can survive anything. On her own. With only herself to rely on.
It’s an interesting narrative quirk, and I’m interested to see if this trope continues in future novels.
All in all, I highly recommend this book. It’s highly readable and raises a lot of questions about identity, love, and secrecy. Pick up a copy at your favorite used bookstore.
Next up on the docket is Now and Forever, the review for which will come. Eventually. Sometime in December. Please bear with me.
