A Posy of Promises

Today I’m thrilled to be part of the blog tour for the lovely A Posy Of Promises by Sharon Dempsey!

Length: 192 pages

Please note that the cover image leads to a universal Amazon buy link for the book

What they say: What happens when the relationship you have taken for granted suddenly ends?

Ava Connors is comfortable with her life just as it is, still living in the tiny terrace house where she was brought up by her grandmother, Maggie, seeing her long-term boyfriend, Finlay, and working in a florists.

But Maggie’s health is declining and Finlay is fed up waiting for Ava to make a commitment.

Ava has never really known her mother, Scarlett, and when she inherits an old and dilapidated house it ignites an interest in the mother who had abandoned her as a child.

Why did Scarlett leave her to be brought up by her grandmother?

Soon Ava begins to ask this question and in turn sets off a series of events that will change her life forever.

A Posy of Promises looks at the relationships we have and the questions we ask of those we love.

The Review: We start this book with Ava Connors considering the property of ninety seven Mount Pleasant Square, where she was brought up by her grandmother, now in a home following a stoke. Ava had considered selling the house but is re-thinking as she goes over all the possibilities of it as somewhere for her, Ava, to settle. I loved that she was left the property while her grandmother was still alive, and that she didn’t know who had left it to her-a nice little pile of questions and secrets were already beginning to materialise!

I quickly settled into beautiful descriptions and ‘put you right there’ settings of Belfast, and the nicely timed unravelling of secrets via a letter that her grandmother had written, among other things. This book had a lighter feel to it than the cover, or indeed the genre implied (for me, I can be very judgy in that regard!) and I was happy that there were a few smiles along the way. I also loved when we started getting another side to the story. For me the thing I ached for was a mixture of who the mystery benefactor was, and also why her mother, the aptly named Scarlett, hadn’t been there when she was growing up. These things-the pieces of the puzzle you didn’t know, and the way they were linked up, as well as the near miss type scenarios, where you weren’t sure if certain characters would even meet, were done excellently and I found myself actually nervous at so many points! All in all such an enjoyable book, where I loved moving slightly outside my comfort zone and I look forward to book 2 in the trilogy to see where it goes next!

Thanks so much to Sarah at Bombshell books and to Netgalley for the book in return for an honest review.

Rating: 4/5

About the author

A Posy of Promises is Sharon Dempsey’s first contemporary women’s fiction novel.

Sharon is a Belfast based writer of fiction and non-fiction books, with four health books published. Her crime debut Little Bird was released July 2017 with Bloodhound Books.

She facilitates therapeutic creative writing classes for people affected by cancer and other health challenges, and runs a creative writing group for young people, called Young Scribblers, at the Crescent Arts Centre. She is a creative writing tutor at Queen’s University and Stranmillis College. Sharon studied Politics and English at Queen’s University, and undertook a newspaper journalism post grad at City University, London. She has written for a variety of publications and newspapers, including the Irish Times.

Sharon is working on the follow up to Little Bird and a collection of dark short stories.

Find her online: