A Promise Kept

A Promise Kept
Stormy Glenn
Torquere Press, Inc.
ISBN: 1-60370-652-6
Fiction, Gay Erotic Romance, Suspense
Reviewed by Shannon Frost

For ten years, Mason Phillips has been secretly in love with Jack Spencer. So much so, that at twenty-six years old, he’s never been involved in an intimate relationship. He believes Jack is the only person he could ever be happy with, but he also believes Jack is straight. Jack has admired his best friend’s little brother, Mason, for a long time, but he made a promise to his friend that he’d never pursue his feelings. When both secrets are revealed, anger and hurt erupt between Mason and Jack, though after several weeks, neither are able to deny their true feelings and a tentative relationship begins. As they try to strengthen their shaky foundation, a stalker who has targeted Mason threatens to tear them apart. With the stalker’s actions becoming more violent, Mason and Jack must learn to find trust and safety with each other.

In A Promise Kept, author Stormy Glenn creates a romance filled with heartache, tension, suspense, and ultimately, happiness. Mason is a character who the reader can’t help but feel sympathy for and to cheer on to have all that he wants, which at times, it’s difficult to figure out why the one thing he wants above all others is Jack, who has moments of being simply mean to him. Jack’s actions are enough to alienate him to the reader, though, once he and Mason begin their relationship, and certainly in the final chapters, Jack does manage to redeem himself. Along with his best friend, Cooper, Mason has a group of close friends that add not only depth to the story, but also amusement as one of them is certain to say at least one entertaining thing almost every time they make an appearance.
The first half of the novel is primarily Mason’s angst over Jack. The latter half deals with Mason’s stalker, and this is where the novel really takes off. Author Glenn does an excellent job in creating a creepy figure in the stalker, Wallace. So while it may start off a little slow, A Promise Kept really pays off in the end.