Overall Grade: A

Tropes: best friends to lovers; roommates; grump/sunshine; single mom; very slow burn

Karla Sorensen is a good picker. You might question my choice of words to grab your attention for this review. You may be thinking, “of what, her nose?” Maybe, maybe not. That’s a personal choice. I suggest that Sorensen’s capacity to make the best choices in her romances is the draw to them. Her ability to create realistic characters (save for the always handsome, well-built men) and the story arcs keep readers such as myself returning to her books with an almost rabid hunger. The Wilder Family or the Ward Family or the Washington Wolves Family aren’t interchangeable. Yes, they have her voice stamped into their books, but they are distinct. They tug at our experiences because they think and feel like us. They might be professional football players, but Sorensen humanizes them in a way that makes us believe we could be their friends. Over and over again, I find this trait in her writing, and it compels me to read every book she writes. 

With her newest book, Promise Me This, Sorensen has a challenge. I’ve heard in many a reader group that the “friends to lovers” trope can be a difficult sell. I’ve even heard authors state this explicitly as their least favorite trope. They struggle with finding the tipping point: what compels two people who have been friends for a long time to finally realize they are attracted to or in love with each other. I’ve read it numerous times, and I will say right here: Sorensen has written it well. When I tell you the why behind that, you’ll understand, but I have to imagine that she struggled to get this “right,” and her “choices” are the compelling reasons why she has done it well. 

• It’s the time between the last time her characters saw each other and their present. The intentionality of keeping them apart for seventeen years, many of those years without contact, is important. In that time, Ian and Harlow maintain the character traits that make them beloved, but they mature into different people. Ian can still feel protective of Harlow in the present, but Harlow, as a single mother living in New York City, has also learned to care for herself. The present-day protectiveness becomes less a habit and more a gift, something to be attracted to versus a survival mechanism. The decidedness of Sorensen’s choice to keep them apart allows for her best friends to become attracted to each other and eventually become forever in a way that makes it believable. This is important to the success of this trope in Promise Me This.
• It’s the slow burn. For readers of smut, this book, quite frankly, might not be for you. Promise Me This is a SERIOUS slow burn (80ish% in for the deed). I’m a personal fan of slow burn as I need the space for the attraction and chemistry to burn. And Sorensen does this well. It never felt manipulative or egregious; it felt necessary as Harlow and Ian MUST understand the change in their relationship and be ready to accept the consequences. Had she been haphazard in their physicality, it would have reduced their story, and their story holds so much power as it speaks to the capacity to love a person beyond the nostalgia of friendship. Sorensen took the space of her story to guide her characters into the truth about their love for each other; that it transcends friendship. The slow burn of Ian and Harlow is my favorite part of this story

Another compelling choice of Sorensen’s in this book is the magnification of relationships within time. The juxtaposition of Ian and Harlow’s long-time friendship and the familiarity of it against Harlow’s relationship with her parents and their routine of living is compelling. As Ian and Harlow try to find equilibrium as their feelings progress, and Harlow recognizes the rigidity of her parents’ routine and way of life, you can see the importance of embracing change. Without that realization, Harlow and Ian can never take the leap into loving each other as more than friends. Instead, if one can imagine it, their friendship might become as staid and comfortable as her parents’ way of life. This entire book underscores the necessity of remaining flexible and open, to allow something bigger and better, and to be both retrospective and introspective in the present. 

And finally, Harlow’s daughter, Sage, along with the Wilder family, continues to remind us of the love of family to support us during the best and most difficult of times. As I entered Promise Me This, I grieved the loss of Tim. His heart-to-heart talks with his children and their love interests have been some of my favorite moments of this series. However, Tim is not lost in Promise Me This. He is stamped into the hearts and minds of his children, so we continue to receive Tim Wilder-isms throughout the book. Even more, Sorensen gifts us with Sage-isms and Sheila-isms throughout her romance. Sorensen’s “choice” to write a family as foundational as the Wilders tethers this series. 

Karla Sorensen simply knows how to choose words, phrases, sentences, characters, and plot lines/devices, creating stories that don’t let go of your heart. I will say it right here: Promise Me This is my favorite book of the series. That’s a difficult choice, but 65 highlights of prose later and a heart so full of Harlow, Ian, and Sage tells the truth. This book absolutely stole my heart. And the extended epilogue is pure emotional perfection.

In love and romance,

Professor A