Product Description

Forty-one-year-old school nurse Kate Cypher has returned home to rural Vermont to care for her mother who's afflicted with Alzheimer's. On the night she arrives, a young girl is murdered—a horrific crime that eerily mirrors another from Kate's childhood. Three decades earlier, her dirt-poor friend Del—shunned and derided by classmates as "Potato Girl"—was brutally slain. Del's killer was never found, while the victim has since achieved immortality in local legends and ghost stories. Now, as this new murder investigation draws Kate irresistibly in, her past and present collide in terrifying, unexpected ways. Because nothing is quite what it seems . . . and the grim specters of her youth are far from forgotten.

More than just a murder mystery, Jennifer McMahon's extraordinary debut novel, Promise Not to Tell, is a story of friendship and family, devotion and betrayal—tautly written, deeply insightful, beautifully evocative, and utterly unforgettable.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #37270 in Books
• Published on: 2007-04-01
• Released on: 2007-04-10
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 256 pages

From Publishers Weekly
Part mystery-thriller and part ghost story, McMahon's well-paced debut alternates smoothly between past and present. In the fall of 2002, 41-year-old Kate Cypher, a divorced Seattle school nurse, returns to New Hope, the decaying Vermont hippie commune where she grew up, to visit her elderly mother, Jean, who's suffering from Alzheimer's. Kate has avoided New Hope since the grizzly, unsolved murder of her fifth-grade friend, Del Griswold, 31 years earlier. Kate fears she betrayed Del, a free-spirited farm girl. Did her betrayal cause Del's death? Who killed Del? Another local girl is murdered in a similar manner at the time of Kate's return. Could the killer be loose again? Meanwhile, Jean appears to be possessed with Del's spirit and may have the answers to these questions. As Kate investigates, she learns stunning truths about many events and people from her youth. McMahon does a particularly good job of portraying the cruelty of school children. (Apr.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist
This assured, ambitious debut novel offers an unusual mix of mystery novel and ghost story, with particularly well-drawn coming-of-age themes. School nurse Kate Cypher returns to her hometown in Vermont to care for her mother, who is suffering from Alzheimer's. It's not a happy homecoming, since Kate never liked the cultlike atmosphere of the commune she grew up in. Not long after her arrival, a local girl is murdered in the same way Kate's childhood friend, Del, nicknamed the "Potato Girl" by her mean-spirited classmates, was killed 30 years ago. Seriously spooked, Kate reconnects with her childhood sweetheart, who is utterly convinced that Del's ghost is afoot in the woods and intent on seeking revenge. McMahon deftly juggles a complex narrative, which smoothly interweaves the past and the present, while also credibly introducing supernatural elements by presenting them through Kate's skeptical viewpoint. But McMahon's real coup is her touching characterization of the brave and desperate Del. It is through that portrait that McMahon drives home the cruelty of childhood bullying. Joanne Wilkinson
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Review
"A great, dark, spooky book for the summer." -- Today Show

"This assured, ambitious debut novel offers an unusual mix of mystery novel and ghost story..." -- Booklist

Customer Reviews

Spectacular Paranormal Yarn
"All my life I have wished I could back and live two moments differently. I do not long to travel back through time and change the fate that led me to drop out of med school and get married, or the choice I later made to abort the only child Jamie and I conceived. No, odd as it may seem, the two instants I wish I could do over both took place on June 16, 1971, when I was ten years old." (pg. 136)

The above is a particularly profound elucidation of the protagonist's remorse from "Promise Not To Tell", a stunning debut novel from Jennifer McMahon. It is a plot-driven story about friendship, betrayal, murder and redemption with an intriguing supernatural component thrown into the mix. For those who like a good ghost story paired with a resonating subtext and traditional themes, this is the book for you.

The novel begins on the evening of November 7th, 2002 in New Canaan, Vermont, the sudden and shocking murder of 13-year old Tori Miller the catalyst for many peculiar - and sometimes scandalous - revelations to come. Her murder is preceded by superstitious retellings of the mythical Potato Girl, New Canaan's resident vindictive ghost who was murdered over 30 years before. Leaving a late-night campfire for a quick bathroom break, Tori is soundlessly strangled mere yards from her friends, her best friend Opal stumbling upon her lifeless corpse. The murder occurs several hours after Kate Cypher sets foot in the town, returning to the hippie commune of New Hope due to her mother Jean's escalating dementia. Though the murder is widely whispered to be the vengeful work of Potato Girl, Kate knows better than anyone what motivates the spirit's need for retribution. In the process of seeking the truth about her death, Kate's complicated history with Del Griswold (the Potato Girl's real name) begins to surface and a whole lot of skeletons fall out of most everyone's closets.

"Promise Not To Tell" moves back and forth between past and present, alternating between the years 1971 and 2002. In the 1971 chapters, Kate's relationship with Del is revealed in spectacular detail, fusing excellent descriptions of people and environments with the glimmerings of fear, fascination, vulnerability and deception. Del herself goes from ethereal to corporeal with McMahon's evocative descriptions of her stringy blonde hair, wiry physique, pale skin ("...she looked like a person who'd had all the color washed out of her"), a smell like "moist earth" and "dirt so thick on her neck that it looked like maybe she really was dug up from the ground like one of the potatoes they grew on her family's farm" (pg. 13). Her personality is abruptly dichotomized, her constant swearing, brusque candor ("hippies are stupid") and coarse approach to people making her a somewhat unpleasant character. Even the Griswold farm is deconstructed in the same beauteous manner, its dilapidated farmhouse, collapsed barn full of feral cats and deformed dogs and virtually grassless dirt-packed yard conjuring a strange and dreadful landscape.

The 2002 chapters couple Kate's sleuthing with her reconnection to people from her past, Opal's inexplicable obsession with and fear of Del's ghost and Jean's mysterious renderings of Del within her paintings. The little plot twists interjected here and there coupled with Kate's guilt over Del's demise will have one vacillating over whether all of the strange coincidences, accidents and occurrences are Kate succumbing to New Canaan's deep-seated legend or whether they are the work of a girl speaking from the grave.

Bottom line: "Promise Not To Tell" is the promise of great things to come from Jennifer McMahon. If you are interested in her other works, check out "Island of Lost Girls", a suspenseful New York Times bestseller, as well as "Dismantled", her third novel scheduled to hit shelves in June of this year.

Lots of holes in the potato girl story
I like the unusual pieces of the puzzle of this horror-mystery: the cult setting in Vermont, Lazy Elk and his "droopy" ways, a farmer with very fertile eggs that he sells, Alzheimer, and especially the Potato Girl, Del.

One hole is why would the ghost of Del create an accident for her brother Nicky? She doesn't have any strong motivation to hurt her him if she supposedly cares for her deputy Kate, why would she endanger her brother who will be a lover to Kate?

Another is how could Nicky still have no past with women? How could a trailer trash like him, stumbling about with a bottle of Wild Turkey, bothering his former lover Zack, but suddenly run into a teenage romancer Kate and have her fall for him? You'd think the experience with Lazy Elk and Zack and her former husband would sharpen the frequency of her antennaes to spot another loser. Her blindness of Nicky annoyed of the hell out of me. A man like him would have had at least 12 love children all over the states of Vermont, New Hampshire, and Massachuesette, and maybe even into Canada. I mean there are so many trailer trash hussies like Kate, gosh everywhere, even in Arizona, where I'm from.

There are some more holes, but I'll let find them for yourself. I can't resist sharing the last one: Why would Del forgive Kate? Del is young enough to hold a grudge, making one of her tormenters choke a mysterious raw potato. Why doesn't she just go after Zack? If evil or the power of revenge can defy the laws of logic, why let Zack kill someone else? I have a hard time accepting that mean Del could let Kate go. Based on her vengeful acts, she hasn't obtain the white light of forgiveness that we want those who have passed to attain. Del's ghost doesn't seem to have evolved or is ready for that.

Regardless this, I know readers will love the unique attributes of this novel. Those of you who will enjoy this novel will have another one to read. I know you'll like Del because she's Mayella Euwell revived to become a heroine. That's a plus.

I almost never give up on a book
No matter how bad it is I tend to grind on and wait to see the story will get better.
I am sometimes rewarded for this persistence, and when I am it encourages me to do it next time.

This was a horror story. I expected horror. I didn't expect down and dirty ugly. I have trouble with that in a book. Chilling is good in a horror story. Compelling helps, or intriguing. None of those things here. . I disliked the characters and found them annoying. I thought the story was dull. I stopped about 80 pages in, so I may well have missed the best part, but somehow, I don't think so.

There are brutal deaths, and unkind people, and in my opinion no redeeming value to this story.