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.

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