Yay or Nay: The Spanish Promise (Novel)

So this book is the last of my Christmas/birthday haul (besides the classics of course!). The Spanish Promise was a gift to me from Olga, and boy did I enjoy— or should I say have some fun with this one! While I enjoyed the story, premise, and the first half of the book immensely (and the large font, my god I’m so confused as to why this was so large-fonted!), the second half of this novel confused me…also immensely. 

And since it's Valentine's Day, I thought it would be fitting to do a romance!

So without further ado here is my review of The Spanish Promise by Karen Swan

The Story

Charlotte Fairfax is a British “wealth counsellor”, helping those who have come into significant wealth navigate and get comfortable into their new lives. When one of her bank’s most prominent clientele, a Spanish man named Carlos Mendoza, is hospitalized and near death, his son Mateo summons Charlotte to Madrid to advise him and his family about his father’s last bequest. His father has left half his wealth an earnings to a young woman named Mariana— who claims to have had no relation or any past interactions with Carlos Mendoza. 

As Charlotte digs, this last bequest opens up generations of family secrets— of a lost love that ended in tragedy, and a family divided by Spain’s Civil War. And while she digs, Charlotte’s own life, a life of secrets in itself that she’s worked so hard to build, is turned on it’s head. 

Okay so there’s a lot going on in this story, and while the first half of the story definitely got to it, the latter half was so lacking in a conclusion, any exposition or development whatsoever, and depth. A big question I still don’t have the answer to is “why”. Why a lot of things happen, how they happened, or why they’re important, or why they even happened. This author has a great story, but she suffers with the time age problem of “show” don’t tell. 

At least pertaining to some respects. 

My Thoughts

So, as I was getting to. The aspect of show don’t tell is seen in a couple spots of this novel. A lot of that has to do with the fact that the first half of the novel sets up a great, and rather interesting paradigm for the characters of Charlotte and Mariana— as I think they were meant to be parallel storylines of each other, mirroring one another over differing periods of time. And to be fair, they kind of did, but I didn’t really see them mirroring one another other than in some aspects of the romance. At the very end of the story it’s revealed one other dimension that they align, but this is not explained on Charlotte’s end at all in the beginning of the book. It’s hinted at, but not explicitly said— again this is where part of the development of the main character could be shown in the beginning, even if it is a bit obvious. Or better yet, this is once instance you could add a “tell” rather than backgrounding it. 

A lot of stuff in this story is backgrounded. And this is a big one— as an example, and a spoiler,Charlotte is getting married back home to some rich guy named Stephen. Charlotte has been married before and on the rehearsal dinner the day before her wedding, her ex-husband shows up, and relays to her that they have an issue because Charlotte never signed the divorce papers. Rather than show the turmoil, her fiance’s anguish or even a fucking discussion that was had about this because it’s a pretty big deal, they cut to the next chapter about Mariana, and then the chapter following Charlotte returns to Madrid and simply explains her fiancé left her because he thought she was sabotaging their wedding. That’s it. And she doesn’t feel anything either— granted she didn’t really love him, but she was robotic towards all this. That example nicely illustrates what the second half of the book does. Backgrounds important details and then mentions them as an afterthought later. And this is a huge problem to understanding anything— depth, characters, motivations, that these characters are supposed have. 

On a brighter note however, I found Mariana absolutely intriguing. She’s a brave, strong, and an independent woman, born into a life of privilege but also choosing a path for her. I had a lot of respect for her and for learning and seeing how much she gave up for those she loved and for the man she loved. That I will say that Karen Swan did beautifully. Mariana’s story didn’t lack any depth, nor details, and in fact, it was a rather tragic life that she lived. Charlotte too, in an interesting character— but rather not the parallel to Mariana as I mentioned. Had Karen Swan explained more about her past, I definitely could’ve seen it, but since it was tagged on a bit at the end, I didn’t. Carlos Mendoza and Mateo Mendoza are both characters that I felt I really wanted to see more of, even more than they already were. They lived both complicated lives and are both hardened, but also kind. That kind of complexity so realistically represented when you read it, you just kinda wanna see more about them from their perspective. 

My Rating

So, I would definitely say that you could give this a borrow, and see if you like it, maybe not a buy. If you like historical romances, this is an easy read, but it’s not without some major faults 

My Rating: ⭐⭐⭐3 stars 

~Meghan