Gray’s
Promise by Anni Fife
The
Wild Rose Press, 2017
Zoey Morgan and
Gray Walker belong together. Growing up on their parents’ adjoining
ranches in Denton, Texas, they’re best friends, then, as Zoey
matures, more than friends. Gray has always known Zoey would
eventually be his; she begs him to take her innocence, but he wants
to wait for the perfect time and setting.
On Zoey’s
nineteenth birthday, however, everything changes. During the
celebration, someone invades the Morgan home, drugs and kills her
whole family, then brutally beats and rapes Zoey herself. Gray’s
brother Jacks is wounded as well. Gray, who hadn’t yet arrived at
the party, curses himself for being unable to prevent the attack,
which leaves Zoey so traumatized she can’t speak. Meanwhile, Jacks
claims that Zoey has agreed to be his wife, pointing out the
engagement ring on her finger. Convinced by his mother that Zoey no
longer wants him, Gray leaves Denton and becomes a soldier, turning
his grief and anger against other enemies.
Meanwhile, Zoey
endures years of nightmares and panic attacks, as well as a
persistent inability to remember what actually happened on that
horrible night. When Gray occasionally tries to contact her, she
pushes him away. Having him around just makes the terrors worse.
Only when her
psychological trauma makes it impossible for her to do her job as a
pediatric surgeon does Zoey reach out to the man she’d once loved.
More than a decade has past. Both Zoey and Gray are so emotionally
damaged that it seems almost impossible for them to trust one
another. For Zoey, though, Gray is her only hope of recovering her
sanity.
Anni Fife really
knows how to ramp up the angst. Rarely have I encountered romance
characters who suffer as much as the protagonists in Gray’s
Promise. Given what the two have
been through, however, I found their mutual suspicion and
heart-rending pain completely believable and very compelling.
Ms. Fife does a
wonderful job portraying the mercurial shifts in their interactions,
the visceral attraction between them battling the scars from their
long estrangement. Only very gradually do they learn how to navigate
the deep and stormy emotional waters into which they’ve been
thrown. The author does not hurry them toward their happily ever
after (the book is a hefty 400 pages in ebook form), but allows each
of them to take tentative steps as they try to reconstruct the love
they once felt for one another, which circumstances crushed so
cruelly.
The
book is beautifully written, alternating between Gray’s and Zoey’s
perspectives. Although Gray is definitely an alpha type, he’s much
more vulnerable and nurturing than Luke, the hero in the first King
Security book (who shows up as a secondary character in this novel).
Zoey’s
tragedy has almost broken her, but she retains an inner
strength. She’s not a limp, self-pitying victim. She can still
respond to Gray with flashes of wit and sass. Still, she teeters on
the edge of chaos. Having had some experience with psychiatric
illness myself, I found Zoey’s lapses into panic all too familiar.
Like Zoey, I discovered that it takes a strong love to banish that
sort of demons.
There’s
a lot of erotic heat between Zoey and Gray, but they don’t fully
consummate their relationship until very late in the book. Some
readers of erotic romance might find this disappointing. I thought it
showed true understanding on the part of the author. A woman as
shattered as Zoey—a
man as cautious as Gray—would
not jump into bed with one another until they were really on solid
ground. Let me assure you that when Zoey and Gray finally do make
love, it is well worth the wait, both for them and for the reader.
Overall,
I really enjoyed Gray’s Promise.
My only criticism is that I thought the “mystery” of the birthday
attack was far too transparent. I knew who was responsible, and why,
hundreds of pages before Gray and Zoey discover the truth. The
punishment of the villains was also a bit too quick and convenient.
This
is a minor point, though. Gray’s Promise
is a romance, not a mystery. And as an instance of that genre, it
succeeds brilliantly.
