Daughter of a Promise is a coming-of-age story loosely inspired by the biblical story of David and Bathsheba.

Daughter of a Promise by Jeanne McWilliams Blasberg

Genre/Categories/Setting: Contemporary Fiction, Women’s Fiction, Coming-of-Age, Finance, New York City

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My Summary of Daughter of a Promise:

Thanks to the author and @SheWritesPress for a complimentary copy of #DaughterOfAPromise upon my request. All opinions are my own.

College graduate, Betsabé Ruiz arrives in New York City for her first job on Wall Street while her heart is filled with dreams of musical theater. Her high-pressure job as a financial analyst for a high-stakes investment banker is more time-consuming and demanding than she imagines. As her work life settles into a harried routine, she develops feelings for the owner/boss which are reciprocated. At the same time, she hooks up with a supervisor. Suddenly, her life is complicated as she juggles friendships, hookups, work projects, a secret affair, and workplace dynamics. All of this is related to the reader through letters she is writing to her son.

My Thoughts:

Tropes

Interesting tropes in Daughter of Promise include coming of age, college graduate in the big city, workplace romance, slice of life, and abuse of power.

Building Understanding

Part of the reading experience is making connections with characters and content. Although this is a well-written story, I found that I couldn’t connect with it on many levels. I’ve never been a young woman in a big city; I haven’t worked in the banking world or on Wall Street; I’m not a second generation Cuban; I’ve never fallen in love with my boss or someone old enough to be my father; I’m certainly not a finance or numbers person; I’ve not been overly tempted by the allure of power or money. Nevertheless, as this well-told story progressed, my understanding of Bets grew. I was able to imagine myself in her complicated world and gained a glimmer of insight into her fascination with and devotion to this older man.

I had the most difficulty understanding the imbalance/abuse of power and the age-gap romance. Thirty years? No wonder she had to explain things to her adult son!

Inspired By…

Blasberg indicates that Daughter of a Promise is inspired by the biblical account of David and Bathsheba. I refreshed my memory of this story so that I could catch the correlations. The most obvious is the manner in which the owner/boss attempts to remove Bets’ immediate supervisor/casual hookup from Bets’ life. (*spoiler: no murder involved) It’s always interesting how an author loosely re-imagines a classic story for contemporary readers.

Likable or Unlikable Characters?

I tend to struggle with unlikable characters. It took me a minute to warm up to Bets as well as other characters. I’m not sure I understand or appreciate her motives for a casual hookup with a coworker, the way she treats her friends/roommate, or her participation in an affair with the owner/boss. As we get to know Bets, understand her ambition, and hear her background, we gain understanding. However, this complicated character was difficult to relate to at first.

Themes

The author presents a few thoughtful themes including friendship, workplace relationships, love will do what love will do, BLM, family heritage, and family support. The part I like best about the story is the lessons for life that Bets shares with her son (and all of us) through the letters.

***content warnings include spoilers***
Content Consideration: Premature birth; baby death (at birth); grief; pandemic (too early?); abuse of power in the workplace

Recommending Daughter of a Promise

Because it’s well written, I’m recommending Daughter of a Promise for fans of character-driven stories with some complicated themes. If you are interested in the world of high-stakes investment banking, you might especially enjoy this part.

Related: I’ve also reviewed and enjoyed Eden by the same author (a complicated family drama)

My Rating: 4 Stars

Meet the Author of Daughter of a Promise, Jeanne McWilliams Blasberg

Jeanne Blasberg is an award-winning and bestselling author and essayist. Her most recent book, The Nine (She Writes Press 2019) was honored with the 2019 Foreword Indies Gold Award in Thriller & Suspense, and the Gold Medal and Juror’s Choice in the 2019 National Indie Excellence Awards, among others. Her debut novel, Eden (She Writes Press 2017), won the Benjamin Franklin Silver Award for Best New Voice in Fiction and was a finalist for the Sarton Women’s Book Award for Historical Fiction. Blasberg founded the Westerly Writer’s Workshop and sits on the boards of the Boston Book Festival and GrubStreet, one of the country’s preeminent creative writing centers. Her essays have been featured in Zibby Owen’s Moms Don’t Have Time To, as well as in The Huffington Post, Indagare, Grown and Flown, diyMFA, The Jewish Book Council, and many others. Blasberg also reviews contemporary fiction for the New York Journal of Books and is a 2021-22 Southampton Arts Bookends Fellow. She and her husband have three grown children and split time between New England and the American West.

She loves to hear from readers and is happy to participate in book group discussions. To learn more, follow her blog, or contact her through her website, http://www.jeanneblasberg.com.

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QOTD:

Is this coming-of-age story on your TBR or have you read it?

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