"All that glitters is not gold."
Glittering Promises is the last installment in Lisa Tawn Bergren's Grand Tour series. It is preceded by Glamorous Illusions and Grave Consequences. Glittering Promises picks up where Grave Consequences left off. Cora Diehl Kensington and her travelling companions are in the middle of a Grand European tour but must face several challenges that threaten their physical safety and relationships within their group. The group is hounded by the press, who want to find scandalous information about Cora and her family. They must also find a way to avoid people who are intent in doing physical harm to Cora.
In addition to this, Cora must sort out her feelings for Will and Pierre, the two men who are vying for her heart. She must also determine what her future will be as part of the Kensington Family. When Wallace Kensington, her biological father, hands over controlling interest of the mines that exist on the land of her adoptive family, the Diehls, the consequences have far reaching effects that bring dramatic changes, division, and for some members of their group, even ruin.
When I first went through this book about three years ago, the narrative's ending made me quite upset. There is a happy ending for some characters, but not for all of them. I was also sort of blindsided by the identities of those who wanted to do harm to Cora. So, I left the book for a while. I didn't know that I would leave it for three years! Upon my more recent reading, I could see that the foreshadowing in the novel should have prepared me a bit for what was to come the first time that I read it. Perhaps I was looking for a light and romantic story, so to realize that it would not end well for all the characters was a bit disappointing.
Nevertheless, I thought that the novel was quite good. I especially liked it when Cora realized, that despite the tumultuous things that were going on all around her, the forces that operating against her, and the confusing changes in her social status, she remembered who she was: she was a daughter of God. The light that was in her life either made her attractive to others, or be viewed as a person to be scorned. For some, she inspired them to become a stronger and better person, while for others, she was an object to be manipulated in their attempts to get their own way.
As in Grave Consequences (I have not read Glamorous Illusions yet), Cora's point of view was in first person, but all other characters' points of view were written in third person. It took a while to get used to again, but I didn't find the changes between first and third person points of view as jarring as I did when I read Grave Consequences. I would not consider Glittering Promises a stand alone book; it resolves the mystery of who is pursuing Cora and her companions, a mystery which began in the earlier volumes of the Grand Tour trilogy.
Disclaimer: I received an e-copy of, "Glittering Promises," by Lisa Tawn Bergren from NetGalley in exchange for a review. All opinions stated in the this review are mine.
