“A Promise Kept” by Robin Lee Hatcher

 God was going to save her marriage, Allison was sure of it. But neither her husband nor her marriage had been saved.

What had become of His promise?

Tony Kavanagh had been Allison’s dream-come-true. They were in love within days, engaged within weeks, married and pregnant within a year. Her cup bubbled over with joy . . . but years later, that joy had been extinguished by unexpected trials.

The day Allison issued her husband an ultimatum, she thought it might save him. She never expected he would actually leave. She was certain God had promised to heal; it was clear that she’d misunderstood.

Now, living in the quiet mountain cabin she inherited from her single, self-reliant Great Aunt Emma, Allison must come to terms with her grief and figure out how to adapt to small town life. But when she finds a wedding dress and a collection of journals in Emma’s attic, a portrait of her aunt emerges that takes Allison completely by surprise: a portrait of a heartbroken woman surprisingly like herself.

As Allison reads the incredible story of Emma’s life in the 1920s and 1930s, she is forced to ask a difficult question: Does she really surrender every piece of her life to the Lord?

Drawing from her own heart-wrenching story of redemption,A Promise Kept is Robin Lee Hatcher’s emotionally charged thanksgiving to a God who answers prayers—in His own time and His own ways.

A Promise Kept is a powerful story of redemption on many levels.  Although neither Allison nor her daughter wanted to walk away from Tony, they each had to – and then, although neither was ready, God brought him back into both lives again.  American culture dictates that we finish with things and dispose of them, that if they don’t suit us or are difficult, we set them aside and move on; but that is not what God asks us to do, and Allison was obedient to God’s calling.

This story follows Allison’s journey of grief, independence, obedience, and forgiveness.    None of the life changes she made were easy, and A Promise Kept makes that very evident.  I enjoyed watching as she transitioned from one state of mind into another, healing all the way.

With that said, although I could see her softening attitudes towards Tony, her return and complete forgiveness of his previous actions still felt sudden.  It felt as if the journey ended too abruptly, and I would have preferred for the storyline to keep moving at a slower, less dramatic pace; but, having read a bit of the author’s story, that would not have been realistic.  While it definitely shakes up the reader’s comfort level, the ending that Hatcher chose is one that only God, and not we imperfect humans, would choose, which makes it the perfect ending.

For me, the far and away best part of the story was Emma’s parallel one.  I loved the notion that another member of Allison’s family had similar struggles, faced them, and won.  The journals made a great tool for traveling back and forth between eras, and for history nuts like me, it made the faith lessons even stronger and more interesting.

A Promise Kept is definitely a departure from the faithful but romantic novels that Hatcher usually writes.  While it is still faithful and romantic, it is deeper and … edgier … somehow than her other works.  That just might make it the best one.

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I received a free copy of this book from LitFuse Publicity in exchange for an honest review.