Karen Does Promises Prevail By Sarah McCarty… Again

Apologies for the lack of posts, but I’m sure you know how it is when life gets in the way.

I’ve been having difficulties getting to sleep just lately, so I’ve been doing random things like cleaning up my laptop, and deleting e-books that were so bad, I couldn’t even bring myself to review them.


Whilst organising my e-books, I came across Sarah McCarty’s file, which I haven’t been into for a while, so I clicked onto Promises Prevail , which I read back in March, when it was originally released.

My intentions were only to briefly browse through my fave bits, but the thing is, once I started, I had to read the whole book again. Sigh.

I didn’t get to bed till about 5am, which The Tall Guy wasn’t too pleased about.

Anyhoo, here’s a quickie blurb:

In 1870 Wyoming, widowed, Jenna Hennessy finds an abandoned, half-breed newborn baby girl on her doorstep. As she is unable to have any children of her own, for her, this is a dream come true. She vows to keep the child, but she knows that without a man to protect her, the townsfolk will not tolerate having a half-breed in their midst.

Clint McKinnely has been in love with Jenna Hennessy for years, even when she was married to her scum-sucker excuse of a husband (he used to abuse her), but he’s always refused to act on his feelings, and even now that the husband is dead, he still feels that he cannot go to Jenna, because he has a secret that could devastate her, if she were to find out about it, and he doesn’t want to take the risk of hurting her.

When Clint finds out that Jenna is hell-bent on keeping the baby, and has decided to look for a husband who can protect her, he realises that he can’t let another man have her, and steps into the frame.

Jenna finds it difficult to understand why Clint would want to take on such a responsibility, but she knows that he’s an honourable man, even though she’s a little afraid of him, and is grateful, nonetheless, for his help.

Jenna and Clint get married, and although, it seems at first to be merely a marriage of convenience, the two of them soon discover a passion that surpasses their greatest expectations.

(If you want any further details, you’re just gonna have to read the goddamned book!)


My Verdict:

After I finished reading Promises Prevail, I remembered why it had been one of my favourite books of 2005, (Linda Howard’s Mackenzie’s Mountain and Son Of The Morning, and Katherine Allred’s The Sweet Gum Tree, were the others) it was just bloody fantastic.


When we first meet Jenna, she’s basically a wimp, who’s afraid of her own shadow, and being somebody who hates weak-assed heroines, I was surprised at how much I actually liked this one.

There was something very noble about Jenna, and although it first seemed to me that if you’d shouted boo at her, she would have had an eppie fit, as the story developed, I guess I learned that there are different kinds of strengths, and not all of them involve being a hard-as-nails bitchy ball-buster.

I’m a sucker for heroines who are able to set aside their fears and stand up for the people they love, and time and time again, Jenna was put into positions where she had to do just that.

Jenna had only ever experienced pain and brutality at the hands of the twat that she’d been married to, and her father before that hadn’t been any better, so as far as she was concerned, men were creatures to be feared.

She had good reason to be a bitter man-hating lunatic, but fortunately, the author didn’t follow that path, which I thank God, because if she had, I would have had to throw the laptop out of the window… OK maybe not *g*

As much as I loved the heroine, for me, Clint McKinnely, the hero, was the absolute piece de resistance.

From the outset, as alpha-male as he was, he treated Jenna with the utmost reverence, and you knew that for him, Jenna was ‘the one’.

Clint was the kind of guy that could say something as corny as “You complete me”, and you’d have totally believed that he really meant it. As far as I was concerned, he was the perfect foil for Jenna’s shy personality.

What a lot of authors tend to do, with characters as insecure as Jenna was, is to give them an alpha, who basically bullies them into growing a backbone, and for me, the fact that this author refused to do that, was one of the main reasons, why the hero appealed to me so much..

I loved the journey of discovery that these two people embarked on together. On several occasions, I found myself smiling tearfully during Jenna’s voyage in particular, and to my utter disgust, I even caught myself pumping my fist during certain parts of the story. Sigh.

The secondary characters in this book was another reason why it was so successful for me. I particularly liked Gray, the surly half-breed brother of the infant, who somehow managed to steal the page every time he appeared. I certainly look forward to his story in the future.


Sarah McCarty’s talent for creating wonderfully flawed, but richly unique characters, is one of the reasons why she’s an autobuy author for me. She has this fantastic way of really engaging the emotions, so much so, that resistance is useless.

In conclusion, for me, Promises Prevail was an engrossing and richly written love story, that although was both powerful and poignant, still managed to make me laugh out loud in parts. A total roller-coaster ride, as far as my emotions were concerned.


If I was a proper reviewer, instead of someone who merely plays at it, I would totally give Promises Prevail DIK (Desert Island Keeper) status. Yes, for me, it really was that good.