Promise Keeper

In Verde Arzu's powerful second novel, Promise Keeper, Chandon Kilpatrick enters Franklin University, a historically Black college, with a quiet vow: to live life on her own terms-not her grandfather's, not the world's, just her own.

But one heated argument with Corey-the sharp-tongued president of the Black Student Union-goes viral, and Chandon is once again labeled the girl who isn't "Black enough."

Determined to reclaim her narrative, she joins the campus LGBTQ+ group and commits to a bold new cause: fighting to free two Black lesbian veterans imprisoned overseas. Her drive for justice is rivaled only by the complicated pull she feels toward two very different people-her loyal friend Alisha and her frenemy Corey.

As emotions around the protest rise and her relationships deepen, Chandon finds herself drawn back to the promise she made-the one rooted in her father's legacy, and the one that demands everything she's still becoming.

Promise Keeper is a coming-of-age story about racial identity, inner conviction, and the quiet, powerful promises we make to ourselves-and what it takes to keep them.