Deadly Promise

by Mignon F. Ballard, Unknown Author

It is Christmas in Harmony, Georgia and the residents are busy preparing for pageants and parties. But behind this festive atmosphere lurks a different cheer.

Molly Stonehouse, visiting her step-aunts on Muscadine Hill, sees a pattern of intimidating events emerge--an elusive red-cloaked figure, footsteps in a church, rifle fire...and the arrival of a stranger in town who makes mystifying claims.

Coming shortly after the sinister accident that killed her husband Ethan and friend Neil Fry, these events begin to tell a deadly tale. When Ethan and Neil were children, both promised never to divulge a fearful secret.

Now Molly knows that among the mistletoe, the friends, the relative and the merrymaking, a terrible drama is unfolding.

Genres: Mystery, Cozy Mystery

MP3 CD

First published January 1, 1988

About the author

Mignon Franklin Ballard grew up in a small town in Georgia, and now lives in Fort Mill, South Carolina.

Reviews

[Hanya Emad · Rating 1 out of 5]

Found it in my grandparents old shelf and when I tell u I didn't know where the mc was most of the time thought she was at the church next thing u know she teleported to a stores parking lot couldn't even finish it bc of that

[Paige Kuether · Rating 3 out of 5]

Christmas mystery, quick read, well written

[Terri Lynn · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am going back trying to find Mignon Ballard mysteries I had not read when they first came out and along came DEADLY PROMISE in my local library system.

I thoroughly enjoyed this story, set during the Christmas season, when Molly, whose husband died 9 months earlier in an unexplained car accident, takes her 13 year old daughter Joy to spend the holidays with her late husband Ethan's aunts. Living with the aunts is cousin Asa and his 15 year old troubled daughter who has a tendency to steal, lie, and literally poison people for revenge (a little syrup of ipecac and poisonous mistletoe berries in your fruitcake and brownies anyone?).

Molly's having plenty of trouble with her own daughter Joy who witnessed Molly and Ethan having an argument just before he left to visit his aunts in response to a mysterious message 9 months earlier. Joy copes with Ethan's death by blaming it on Molly and giving her the cold shoulder but Molly is determined to find out who killed Ethan.

The mystery centers on a day years earlier when Ethan was young and spending Christmas with the aunts. He and two friends found an envelope with two plane tickets send from "Your Mouse" to the town slut who disappeared that night (minus the tickets) when her father's barn also was burned down.

I found myself suspecting everyone. Did Reuben, the minister do it? He had a crush on Rowena and she pretended to date him to fool her strict father when she was really having Reuben take her to meet other guys. Was it school teacher Myrtis? Or maybe even one of the aunts?

Poor Molly tries to stir up romance with a mysterious stranger but with three people knowing about the hidden letter and two of them dead (Ethan and a friend), is this stranger really the third endangered one- or is he someone else? There is teen drama mixed with poisoned fruitcake (that leads to death), gunshots taken at Molly, threatening notes, hiding from a mysterious shooter in a car, running for one's life, and creepers in the dark at the church. Warning- Santa might not be who or what you think!

A body is found dead and buried- not Rowena but the guy she was supposed to have run off with. Where is Rowena and WHO is she. Read and find out.

[Lynn · Rating 3 out of 5]

"you'd better watch out, You'd better not cry, Or there won't b much doubt, You'll be the next one to die!" The first victim was her husband. Then his best friend. So Molly Stonehouse had come to Harmony, Georgia for Christmas-- to discover who in her husband's cheery hometown was a murderer. At the center of the mystery is a secret from the past - an innocent boyish prank that, decades later, is unfolding with deadly precision. Among the joyful hordes decking the halls, someone is poisoning fruitcake and firing gunshots in the snowy woods. Someone who knows why Molly has come home for the holidays. And plans to make sure she doesn't leave...alive.

[Savannah · Rating 3 out of 5]

A mystery that will put chills on your back.The perfect story to read on a late Friday night!

[Natnat337 · Rating 4 out of 5]

fun cozy mystery!

[Michele Minor · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a fun cozy mystery to read around Christmastime since the book is set during the Christmas season and there are scenes in it that have to do with the small town Christmas traditions.

[Jane · Rating 2 out of 5]

Suspense, not mystery. Don't really care for the style.

[Michelle Connell · Rating 4 out of 5]

Delightful story of an author I enjoy. Not too much language and likeable characters in a southern setting.