ANGIE'S PROMISE

Author: Toby Heathcotte ISBN: 1590883187 8/2004 CONTEMPORARY/PARANORMAL Publisher: Wings ePress, Inc.

Youthful pride ends the love affair of Angie and Ty. They meet again twenty years later, rediscover their devotion, and plan to marry. In a vision, Angie sees a plane crash and shares her fears with Ty, a pilot. When he dies that way, the Navy screams sabotage, her son doubts her sanity, and her daughter-in-law fears Angie’s power. Angie refuses to accept a future without Ty and promises his soul that she will find a chink in the barrier of death.

RRAH's THOUGHTS AND PONDERINGS:

The relationships in this novel are incredibly relatable. You have the love between two mature adults in Angie and Ty’s relationship, in contrast to the new love that is blossoming between Angie’s son, Luke, and Melinda. Angie and Ty have both been married before. Luke and Melinda are young and ready to take on the world. They are driven by their careers. Nothing is more important to Melinda than being a success. She believes that it is up to her to help pave the way for other Hispanic women. She will give up everything including her marriage to Luke and their son Aaron to fulfill her dream. While I was very angry at Melinda for giving up her family for her career, a part of me also admired her. In her eyes she had to give up her family for the greater good of giving Hispanic women a chance to advance and make their lives better. She sacrificed her own happiness for the happiness of others. Luke, on the other hand, realized that his career would never be as important to him as his family. His success was defined as being a father and husband rather than a powerful attorney.

Angie’s psychic abilities prove that love knows no bounds. She believes that she and Ty have loved one another in many past lives. She truly believes that she will find Ty again after he dies, and that is the promise that she makes to him. Ultimately she does find him after losing her battle with cancer.

This is a very dramatic story. I felt empty and hopeless when Angie lost Ty, and I was angry at Melinda when she left Luke and Aaron for her career. I felt at peace when Angie passed from this world and met Ty again, and when Luke realized that his mother will always be with him, even if not in the physical sense.

The first few pages of the novel were challenging for me because there was a lot of sailing terminology, and I needed a dictionary to understand what was happening. ANGIE'S PROMISE is not what I expected from a paranormal novel. Angie’s psychic abilities are very believable. I really liked her character and the wisdom she imparted: love is eternal and exists beyond the physical planes of earth; don’t be selfish with the time you have on earth, and when your time comes, embrace it and don’t be afraid to die. I also felt that I could relate to Angie because she is so afraid of becoming her mother. She doesn’t want to make the same mistakes that her mother made, but in that does she go too far in trying to be the opposite of her mother? This is a very powerful novel and one that I highly recommend.

Carrye