The Promise charts the crash & burn of a white South African family, living on a farm outside Pretoria.
The Swarts
By the time the summer holidays begin, Spencer Little is keen to put the events of the past term at Cambridge behind him & a remote village in the Lake District seems to offer the perfect escape. But it's not so easy to remain anonymous in a small community &, after striking up a friendship with ten year old Alice, Spencer also finds himself being drawn into other people's lives. As the summer heatwave intensifies & a web of complicity tightens around him, Spencer realizes that he will eventually be forced to choose between loyalty & truth, between logic & passion.