How long is Broken Promise (Promise Falls, #1)?

Broken Promise (Promise Falls, #1) is approximately 92,000 words. At an average reading pace, it takes about 4 hours to read.

Is Broken Promise (Promise Falls, #1) difficult to read?

Broken Promise (Promise Falls, #1) has a difficulty score of 2.2 out of 10, making it relatively accessible. Key factors include vocabulary complexity (2.2/10), sentence structure (1.8/10), abstract concepts (1.4/10).

What genre is Broken Promise (Promise Falls, #1)?

Broken Promise (Promise Falls, #1) is categorized as mystery, thriller, crime fiction, suspense. It was published in 2015.

Is Broken Promise (Promise Falls, #1) worth reading?

Broken Promise (Promise Falls, #1) is notable with a literary regard score of 1.5/10. Visit ReadingRate for the full difficulty analysis and reading guide.

Broken Promise (Promise Falls, #1)

Published 2015 · 92,000 words · about 4 hours at an average pace · mystery, thriller, crime fiction, suspense

How hard is Broken Promise (Promise Falls, #1) to read?

Broken Promise (Promise Falls, #1) scores 22 out of 100 for difficulty on ReadingRate, making it relatively accessible. The score is a weighted composite of nine measures: four of how hard the prose is to parse, five of how hard the meaning is to extract.

Vocabulary: 22 out of 100: Barclay writes in clean, accessible prose aimed at a broad commercial audience. Vocabulary is colloquial and functional — no rare or specialized diction, no technical jargon beyond police procedural basics.
Sentence structure: 18 out of 100: Short-to-medium sentences dominate, with clear subject-verb-object structures. Dialogue is crisp and naturalistic. No subordinate-clause stacking or grammatical experimentation of any kind.
Abstraction: 14 out of 100: Concrete and plot-driven throughout. Meaning is carried by events, objects, and actions — not ideas. Characters think about their immediate problems, not abstract concepts. The novel never ascends to philosophical register.
Information density: 24 out of 100: Multiple POV chapters keep the reader supplied with new plot information, but the prose itself is lean. Each scene delivers one or two narrative beats. No allusions, intertextuality, or embedded arguments that demand unpacking.
Narrative indirection: 32 out of 100: The book uses multiple third-person POVs (David Harwood, Barry Duckworth, Marla, and others) that rotate chapter by chapter. The mystery structure withholds key information, but the narration is reliable and the overall timeline is linear.
Symbolic density: 12 out of 100: A dead squirrel on a windshield functions as an ominous recurring motif, and the decaying town of Promise Falls carries some thematic weight about community decline, but these are surface-level. The novel doesn't ask the reader to decode layered symbols.
Ironic distance: 100 out of 100: The narrative voice is earnest and direct. There is no gap between what the story says and what it means. Characters are trustworthy narrators of their own experience, and the authorial stance is transparent.
Resolution withholding: 38 out of 100: As the opener of a trilogy, the novel deliberately withholds resolution on several plot threads — the full scope of what threatens Promise Falls is seeded but not explained. The immediate mystery (who killed the baby's mother) resolves, but the larger threat is left dangling.
Structural complexity: 22 out of 100: Multiple rotating POV chapters are the primary structural device. The timeline is mostly linear with short flash-backs. No nested narratives, frame stories, or non-chronological architecture. The structure serves the thriller momentum rather than creating interpretive difficulty.

How Broken Promise (Promise Falls, #1) is regarded

Broken Promise (Promise Falls, #1) holds a literary regard score of 15 out of 100, weighing its place in the canon, its critical reception, its influence on other writers, and the standing of its author. Regard is measured separately from difficulty: a demanding book is not necessarily an admired one.