RETURN TO PROMISE By Debbie Macomber Mira Romance October 2000 ISBN # 1-55166-613-8 {Click here to buy this book} "Return to Promise" is the sequel to "Promise, Texas" where the reader is given a chance to drop back into this small town to

Cal Patterson is a rancher. He's a quiet man who loves his family deeply. His marriage is as perfect as the ideal marriage can get. But when a woman from Cal's past comes back to Promise his life is suddenly turned upside down through misunderstanding and an unwillingness to listen on both his part and his wife's. Cal's a proud man and refuses to give in because his pride won't let him. He's done nothing wrong and until his wife sees that there will always be a rif between them as wide as the Grand Canyon.

Jane is one of the areas doctors who is known locally as Dr Texas. There's no doubt in her mind that Cal is the perfect man for her. And her two children are proof of the love they share for one another. Up until the day of the local rodeo Jane never thought that there was anything that could come between them. The first warning flag is when Cal enters the bull riding without telling her, constituting in her mind as a lie. The next is when he doesn't tell her about the woman he met ringside after his win. The final straw comes when Cal neglects to tell Jane that this mysterious woman came to their house while she and the kids were back in California to see her ailing father. Cal refuses to see her side in the dispute so she decides to take her children back to California until he sees sense.

I've always enjoyed Ms Macomber's books. "Promise, Texas" was an interesting, almost refreshing, look into the goings on in a small town. When "Return to Promise" was released I was anxious to see what adventures were in store. I found the story to be a quick read and the characters stayed true to their original creation. While staying true to original, I appreciated such a realistic foundation to the plot. It's so easy to see how a single misunderstanding can affect the outcome of a situation. And when two people with such strong wills collide in disagreement sometimes the outcome can be catastrophic. Cal and Jane are two such people.

As much as I enjoyed the story, it was not without its faults. I found Cal to be hardheaded and unrealistically unreasonable at times. And Jane is untraditionally narrow-minded. Where Cal is uncharacteristically open and willing to discuss their marital problems, Jane is shut off and sees only what she wants to see. Jane keeps her vow to prove herself right for so long that she starts looking divorce in the eye, and she makes it Cal's responsibility, in the end, to make things right. In the end, I was left with conflicting feelings over the story. On one side there was a comfortable familiarity with the town of Promise and the residents but on the other side was the childish portrayal of the characters.

Many issues were left unanswered as well, which I can only assume will come in a later inclusion in the story of Promise. For this particular story, I was left wanting something more. Particularly the answers to what Cal and Jane will do to keep their marriage strong since the woman at the heart of their problems still has her eyes on Cal; what Annie, Jane's best friend, will do since the woman is in her employ, and why Cal is so unsupportive of Jane in her time of need with her sick father.