Thank you Netgalley and the Publisher for my ARC in exchange for my honest review. This was an enjoyable book by an outstanding author.

(Thank you the author and publisher for an advanced reader copy of this book. All wording is of my own opinion.)

The Promise of Us
by Jamie Beck

The Promise of Us was a wonderful story! From life changing situations like cancer and surviving a shooting, to overcoming fears, opening your heart to love, forgiveness, and new friendships. I loved it all! I found myself immediately drawn to Claire and Peyton’s broken friendship and how throughout the story, it is slowly mended! My heart just went out to both of them. And Logan, Peyton’s brother, at times drove me nuts, but he finally grew on me in the end. This was a great read!

I enjoyed reading this story by Jamie Beck. It is about facing your fears, finding yourself, and the changing relationships in your life. This is a sweet romance story where the characters show a lot of growth. Happy Reading!

I received an ARC from NetGalley in exchange for my honest review.

THE PROMISE OF US is the second book in the SANCTUARY SOUND series, and I can’t wait for more. This book picks up where THE MEMORY OF YOU leaves off, and it was like I’d never left Sanctuary Sound. The story is set in Connecticut, where I’ve lived for 47 years. The author nailed the details. I felt like I was there with the towns and locations that are so familiar to me.

Logan and Claire are drawn together as he tries to repair her friendship with his sister, who is undergoing cancer treatment. Claire has always had a crush on Logan, but when the relationship has the potential to be more, she’s not sure she’s all in. She’s still dealing with her fears. Years ago, she was shot and lost her ability to play tennis—a core part of her identity.

Logan wants nothing but to see Claire live her life and flourish. She does move forward with his help, but her mother is none too pleased since she’d prefer Claire to stay close to home, protected. Logan and Claire are good for each other since he opens her eyes to more of what’s she’s capable of and she shows him what a good person he truly is. The exploration of familial relationships broadens and shapes the characters, giving them real depth.

There’s a nice flow to the story as we go from Connecticut to New York, to Rhode Island and even Greece. The happily ever after is better than I expected, and the cover totally fits the book. The sneak peek from book three in the series, THE WONDER OF NOW, just whet my appetite for more!

I look forward to reading more of Jamie Beck’s work since they have strong characters with a small town feel.

A story about romance, friendship and forgiveness, “The Promise of Us” runs the gamut of emotions as it unfolds the story of childhood friends who seem to not be able to get along as grown-ups.

To an onlooker, it would appear that fate had given Claire McKenna the short end of the stick. At 15, a random shooting shattered her hip and ended her promising professional tennis career. Then, a few years back, her boyfriend Todd dumped her in favor of Peyton Prescott, her childhood friend.

And now, her interior design business was teetering, and it needed paying clients for it to survive. Then to add insult to injury, Peyton Prescott and her brother Logan Prescott were back in town, their presence stirring up bad memories.

With a premise like that, author Jaime Beck gave herself a tall order to get to a happily ever after. Claire and Logan have to rekindle whatever they had in their childhood which never went beyond over a crush because Logan led a nomadic life as a photographer when he reached adulthood.

Then Claire has to find forgiveness in her heart to Peyton’s betrayal of their friendship and the Girl Code. On the other hand, Logan has to side with his sister for familial reasons and because Peyton really needed his support as she struggles with cancer.

From this point of view, our romantic hero and heroine were truly in the opposite ends. But, author Jaime Beck is a master of her craft. From their opposite ends, Claire and Logan slowly walked towards the middle and finally met each other on equal footing, no pun intended.

The “Promise of Us” touched me on a personal level on the friendship between Claire and Peyton. I was betrayed by a friend whom I trusted and whom I loved like family. The betrayal was not about romantic love, but about business. The harm to my business was the easiest to push aside. It was the lost of trust that truly devastated me.

Then, something unthinkable happened. That friend of mine was in a bad accident and she did not come out whole. I was sad for her, but I was still not in a forgiving mood because I was still trying to fix the consequences of my friend’s action to my business.

This will sound religious, but I had to pray for myself so that I can find forgiveness in my heart towards my friend. Though I know I was the aggrieved party, the accident my friend had made me feel like I was being a total jerk not being able to forgive.

With this in mind, I truly understand why Claire was having a hard time finding forgiveness for Peyton who had cancer and still undergoing treatment for it.

Once again, I have to commend author Jaime Beck in her handling of this scenario between two major characters. I don’t want to give spoilers, so I won’t say how it was done.

“The Promise of Us” is Rated M for Mature.

This was such a great book. I really enjoyed Logan and Claire and watching them progress and retreat in their relationship. Then you add Peyton into the situation which made everything more interesting. Loved seeing everyone, it was like catching up with old friends. This book to me was, forgiveness, taking chances and living life and it was nice that some fences were starting to be mended, though slowly but mended none the less. My favorite quote from this book was “Her love kept him company, even in her absence.” Looking forward to reading Peyton’s book.

This is a continuation of the series, and a better one. This is Claire’s story. I incorrectly assumed that the author would include aspects that never materialized, and I think it’s a better book for not including the easy elements I expected.

I think this was better than book one, so I expect great things for the next one! I felt the characterization was more solid and the story “flowed”.

The Promise of Us (Sanctuary Sound Book 2) I read this book several months ago and do not know where my review went. I love the Sanctuary Sound series. Jamie Beck once again has another great read. Claire McKenna is a very strong and loving woman who adapts to a life filled with love and overcomes the hardship of a lifelong dream being crushed. As in life some dreams are crushed but in the end we find new ones to replace the old. Claire finds strength in a loving and caring man, I give this book 5 stars.....

I received a free copy of ‘The Promise of Us’ in exchange for a fair review. This was my first experience with the author’s writing, but not with the contemporary genre. It was fairly easy to jump into this book, despite the fact that it picks up where ‘The Memory of You’ left off. It was easy enough to piece together the characters backgrounds.
I found Claire to be a relatively interesting character, though a bit on the boring side for a main character. The plot was relatively interesting, and I found Logan to be charming. While the book was enjoyable on a basic level, it wasn’t anything earth shattering, either. It read a bit like a Hallmark movie, which I did enjoy. But for a contemporary (adult) romance, the characters weren’t very deep and often came across as emotionally immature.
Overall it was a good read - great for those who like a straightforward, laidback romance. I just was left wishing that the characters were a little more mature and a little less cliche.

4.5 Stars!

This story is the Jamie Beck I’ve come to know and love - with compelling characters and complex situations that keep me engaged and twisted up inside. I was a little concerned about this series after the first book left me underwhelmed, but The Promise of Us was everything I was hoping for!

Claire, Steffi and Peyton were best of friends growing up in Sanctuary Sound, Connecticut. At 15, Claire was a victim of a random act of violence that ended a promising professional tennis career and plunged her into a world of constant pain and fear, which keeps her close to home and in her own bubble. She was left behind when her two best friends left for college and followed their dreams. Recently Steffi has returned home and the two have started their own interior design and renovation business. It’s not a big, exciting life, but it’s one Claire's happy with.

Peyton has become persona non grata, though, after getting involved with the man Claire was in love with, while he was still dating Claire. Now Peyton is back in Sanctuary Sound as well, recovering from a battle with breast cancer, and her older brother Logan will do anything to help Peyton repair her relationship with Claire. Including hiring Steffi and Claire to renovate his NYC apartment.

This book has so many layers to it, with such complex, flawed characters and complicated situations, and I loved all of it.

The situation with Peyton’s betrayal is forefront in this story, and I liked how things weren’t brushed under the rug easily. People took sides, true feelings were expressed - sometimes harshly, and most importantly, Peyton was truly remorseful and didn’t demand forgiveness. I like how progress was made towards Claire and Peyton having a cordial relationship, and that it took to the whole book to get there. So often situations with such deep hurts are resolved too easily, and I am so glad Ms. Beck allowed Claire to have her feelings and express her emotions, and had her do so in a mature way.

Then we have Claire and Logan’s relationship, which at times seemed very one-sided and manipulative. Logan is not a perfect hero. But his heart was in the right place, so I found it hard to hold many of his actions against him. His intentions were pure, but his methods were frequently ill advised. Still, the mea culpa email he sent Claire at the end totally had me swooning. I love a heroine who tells the hero what she wants and is willing to walk away when he can’t give her what she deserves. I love a hero even more who then realizes what he’s lost and isn’t afraid to say “I was wrong.”

Finally, we have Claire and her also well-intentioned but completely enabling parents. At first glance it seems ridiculous that an adult would let her parents tell her what she should and shouldn’t be doing, to have parents so involved in your day-to-day life. As a parent, I can sympathize with how terrifying it would be to have your only child shot; however, to live in that fear, and continually feed that fear into your child into adulthood, is shameful. But that underlying, unobtrusive family dysfunction (as opposed to the outright dysfunction of Logan and Peyton’s family) is just another reason why I liked this book SO MUCH.

I went from not looking forward to the Sanctuary Sound series, to hardly being able to wait to read Peyton’s story. I love a good multi-book series where things are complicated and messy, and Ms. Beck delivered exactly that!

* thank you to NetGalley and Montlake Romance for providing an ARC in exchange for an honest review

3.5 Stars

After not loving Steffi's book, I went into this book with much trepidation, but I was extremely pleased to find that The Promise of Us didn't focus on the “social justice/gun control” part of Claire's injury and instead focused on Claire the person and her physical and emotional scars. Although she was flawed and had some serious issues, I really liked Claire and found myself rooting so hard for her to break through the things that were holding her back. Even when she struggled, she was still so brave and so strong.

Logan was an interesting character to me. I wanted to really like him, but he was a way too blind to why Claire might have an issue with his sister's actions, and way too hipster-snobbish for my personal taste. Being that they're all usually upper class characters, Ms. Beck's characters often have a different world view than people in lower tax brackets but Logan's total obliviousness to other people and their feelings while riding his white-collar high horse frustrated me from start to finish. I kept waiting for personal growth on his part, but instead the growth was pretty much all on Claire's part.

Even though I didn't love all aspects of this book, I did enjoy a good portion of the story and I am surprisingly really looking forward to reading Peyton's book – something I did not think I would ever say.

This was a book about friendship, loss, betrayal, forgiveness and love. All the elements were there to tell a wonderful story.

Claire McKenna had suffered a brutal attack years earlier that had shaped the rest of her life. She was fearful of new experiences and traveling outside her comfortable bubble in the small coastal community in Connecticut. Although, the incident had happened many years earlier, she bore the scars on her body and in her mind. To make matters worse, one of her best friends, Peyton Prescott, had betrayed her trust when she became involved with Claire's boyfriend, Todd. Now, Peyton and her handsome brother, Logan, are both back in town. Peyton had been diagnosed with breast cancer and, at a very young age, had to undergo a bilateral mastectomy, along with other treatments to try and cure her. Claire is determined to avoid both Peyton and Logan.

Claire had had a crush on Logan since they were kids. He had always been kind to her but there had never been anything else. Now, Logan, is around and he wants Claire to forgive his sister and move on but Claire is holding on to her anger and fear. Can Logan show here there is a better way? Will Logan finally see that his life can be better with Claire as a part of it?

I enjoyed reading this book. I loved the story and how the relationship developed between Claire and Logan and how they both were able to recognize the things in their lives that were missing and how much better their lives could be with the right people and opportunities.

I was given an arc copy of this book and I willingly offer my honest review.

The second in a series about three childhood friends. I enjoyed this story, though it took a while for me to get into it. If I had to classify it, I’d say it was a friends-to-enemies-to-lovers book. I love a couple with a complicated history! Logan is the big brother of Claire’s childhood friend, Peyton, and she has had a crush on him since the moment she laid eyes on him. After Claire and Peyton’s relationship suffers insurmountable damage, it seems that Claire and Logan’s will, too. But this story is about how they make their way back to each other, and it’s both beautifully written and has its laugh out loud moments. Jamie Beck does it again.

I'm not sure if I'm missing the point of this series or if there is just a little too much angst for me in general. In book one, The Memory of You, I didn't like female lead and thought too much time was spent on Claire and Peyton's issues.
Now in Claire's book, I really didn't like Logan, the male lead (and Peyton's brother) because he was too busy pushing Claire to forgive Peyton and not enough actual romance between him and Claire.
I did like Claire, and I was all on board with her not forgiving Peyton. Yup, I'm that reader who is not very forgiving and actually wishing Claire would have been harsher in her dealings with Peyton. While as a person I of course feel sympathy for the health issues that Peyton is facing. But where is it written that all bad deeds are washed away when someone is sick? Peyton was a horrible friend to Claire, period.
I did not appreciate Logan, not only pushing for what HE wants Claire to do, but also for pushing Claire to do things she IS NOT comfortable with. Frankly, he was a bully, in my mind, for a lot of the story. Yes, it can be argued that he was trying to help Claire overcome some of her fears. But these are fears she has held onto for over a decade...she wasn't going to overcome them all in a few days or weeks. And helping Peyton was his first motivation, not Claire.
This review does not negate the regard I have for Jamie Beck or her writing. I think maybe the strong feelings I have prove what a wonderful writer Beck is; a mediocre book and writer would not bring out such strong feelings...good or bad...in a reader. I'll continue to read Miss Beck's books (just maybe not Peyton's!!)
Thanks to Net Galley for this ARC, obviously this review is given both freely and honestly!

The Promise of Us by Jamie Beck
Book #2: Sanctuary Sound Series
Source: NetGalley and Montlake Romance
Rating: 3/5 stars

**MINI-REVIEW**

The Bottom Line: It makes me feel truly crappy and like a very bad person when I so aggressively dislike a character who has been through as much as Claire McKenna has in book two of the Sanctuary Sound series. Claire survived a life-altering tragedy and though she has recovered in many ways, she has not in other critical areas. It is this lack of recovery, refusal to seek helps, and Claire’s truly terrible attitude that had me angry with her from her introduction in book one all the through the end of book two. Claire has used her tragedy as an excuse for a great deal of bad behavior and cruel words and that I found to be completely off putting. In fact, even when Claire began to work on her issues, I found I couldn’t overlook her past behaviors as they were so awful and so pronounced.

With the above having been written, how am I still at a 3-star rating? Logan! Logan Prescott may be something of a playboy, but he presents himself as anything but in this read. Logan is kind, caring, patient, talented, and likely the only man who can break through Claire’s horrifying attitude. I found Logan to be a wonderful character with a strength of character that was quite refreshing. I liked his attitude, his actions, his words, and his devotion to his sister. Hands down and without doubt, Logan saved this read for me and kept me from dropping below three stars.

Jamie Beck is easily one of my favorite authors out there right now. I came in to The Promise of Us without having read the first book (I'm not sure how I missed it!) and was worried I would be a little be lost, but each book focuses on a different character and there are enough details thrown in throughout the book that summarize the first book that it's pretty easy to just jump right in. The Promise of Us tells a charming story of Claire Mckenna who has known her share of heartbreak and disappointments after tragedy changed her life and her best friend ran off with her longtime boyfriend. She lives her life comfortably, but shrouded by fear and is happy to do so until somebody comes along and makes her question everything. Can she spread her wings a little bit and finally live? Should she? I think this story will surely speak to any reader and challenge us to get out of our comfort zone sometimes and do something unexpected no matter how scary it is at the time.

Second in a series, focusing on Claire - victim of an accident and living with a degree of physical disability and emotional anxiety. I think Beck did a terrific job with the character development of Claire and her two friends Steffi and Peyton. Much of the book explores how the relationship broke and the obstacles to completely mending it. Then enter the men. I think Beck was trying to make Logan an alpha male archetype, but he ended up looking like a narcissist half the time. Ben was the “nice” guy - and Beck neglected to develop him like she could’ve. Maybe that’s for book 3! I do think the guys could have been better written. Even so, I enjoyed this read. Thanks to NetGalley for an advance copy in exchange for an honest review.

After a horrible incident and subsequent injury when Claire was young, she is living a very sheltered life due to the fear of being hurt again. Logan Claire's story is filled with healing, exploration and expansion of horizons to find their happily ever after.

This is a very touching and heartwarming story filled with great characters and a thought provoking story line. The Promise of us is well worth the read.going to be added to my re-read pile to be sure.

Claire suffered a teenage trauma when she got shot in a mall shooting. Since then she lives a sheltered safe life with her limited mobility. Cautiously living life on her safe terms she finds a boyfriend and is looking forward to a good future when the boyfriend deserts her for her best friend. Now Peyton's name is anathema to Claire despite the fact that she finds out that Peyton has cancer and their mutual boyfriend has deserted Peyton too. It's only when Logan Peyton's brother comes to town with his sister and tries to get Claire out of her shell in an attempt to make peace between the two girls that Claire realizes how much she's given up.
Logan's character is pretty manipulative especially as he tries to change Claire's mind about his sister but there is no doubt that Logan loves his sister. The parents make a very interesting foil to the children but I love how Claire finally stands up for herself to her parents and tells them that they are smothering her. The icing on the cake of course is when she makes a presentation of her ideas to Logan's uber successful father and holds her own. What Logan has going for him is how he coaxes Claire out of her shell venturing out further and further including the big bad city even if his original motives are flawed. Claire of course has the most character development as she moves beyond her reclusive afraid of her shadow personality tp be able to stand for herself and finally deal with the issue of her friendship with Peyton as an adult.
Ms. Beck is a new to me author and I love her contemporary stories with heart. Yes while I had no trouble starting with this book I did go back and buy the first book in the series to read.

3.5 stars

The Promise of Us by Jamie Beck is a well written and heartfelt read.

I enjoyed watching the relationship unfold between all the characters and I was happy Claire and Logan were able to find their happily ever after.

Overall, The Promise of Us is a good addition to the Sanctuary Sound series.

*Thank you to the publisher via Netgalley for the advance copy.*