Reviewed by Kat
TITLE: Jonathan’s Promise
SERIES: Jonathan Trilogy #2
AUTHOR: Hans M. Hirschi
PUBLISHER: Beaten Track Publishing
LENGTH: 214 pages
RELEASE DATE: March 31, 2016
BLURB:
Jonathan made Dan a promise – a promise that will affect the remainder of his life. But what does he have left to live for?
When their grandson Parker and his fiancé Cody move in with him, the three of them embark on a journey to shed light on Dan’s roots.
A heart-warming sequel to Jonathan’s Hope, Jonathan’s Promise deals with aging and the ultimate consequences of wedding vows. Are we entitled to a second shot at happiness? When is ‘for worse’ too much to handle?
REVIEW:
I have to say that I was surprised that there was a sequel to Jonathan’s Hope. The previous book spanned the lifetime of Dan and Jonathan’s love for one another, and the epilogue was placed 60 years in the future from the main story.
Jonathan’s Promise takes place immediately after the epilogue of Jonathan’s Hope. Dan, at 90, had succumbed to his reoccurrence of prostate cancer and passed quickly. He lived a full, loving and rich life. Although Jonathan is not quite 80, he is still in his final years of life as well, but he has a promise to fulfill to Dan…one that could change the remainder of his life. To be honest, because I read the two books back to back, I set myself up to really miss Dan and Jonathan together, as they were in the first book, but I was happy to see lots of glimpses of them in flashbacks/remembrances throughout this book.
In this newest installment, we again have two main characters that have a wide age difference, even greater than the one in Jonathan’s Hope. While the age difference didn’t bother me at all, the fact that Jonathan took a huge leap in age from 19 to 79 in a matter of pages, really bothered me and threw me off in the story. I had a hard time grasping this major age change. He went from being younger than his grandson, Parker, who is featured prominently in this book, to being a great-grandfather within the turn of a page. As I said, I was thrilled to have sections about Dan and have his life filled in, but I don’t think I could fully embrace the author’s sudden jump to the elder Jonathan. Especially when the 79 year old Jonathan is as randy as a teenager when sex presents itself. I also had some difficulty with the revelation that Dan and Jonathan had allowed each other to have sex with other men, together and separately, though out their marriage. That just didn’t seem to align with their story in the previous book.
I am not surprised that the author had Jonathan meet someone to help him through his grief, he did this for Dan with Jonathan. And I am not surprised there was an age difference, again, it follows a pattern. One thing I didn’t get in this book though, was that I honestly found the instances of sex multiple times per day at 80 to be slightly unbelievable and unrealistic.
No spoilers on the plot and storyline, but I have to say that I am a little furious with Parker and Cody’s story. Hadn’t Cody suffered enough? And I can’t even put on paper the sorrow and how furious I was with the part of the book which was set in Bora Bora.
I am not saying that I didn’t like this book. I freely admit that I didn’t like it anywhere near as much as the first, which is ironic since this one wasn’t filled with all my triggers like Jonathan’s Hope was. I had a hard time adjusting to the turn in the story line and the giant leap of time. I have read stories that have spanned a lifetime, and, like these two stories, I cried my eyes out with huge, ugly tears, which I don’t usually do. But usually that type of story gradually leads us from the beginning to the end of the character’s life. With the giant time leap in this one, it threw off the reader in my opinion and it was just too large a jump to fathom and grab hold of.
I know based on the epilogue that was included in the first book, that there was no way to go back and continue Dan and Jonathan’s life story, but I think it would have made the transition easier on this reader if it had. I have now read that there will be a third book. I have to tell you that I’m not sure I’ll even consider reading that book.
In conclusion, I’m going to rate this one a 3.0. It was good, but average in my opinion.
RATING: 
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