Promises Beyond Jordan
 Vanessa Davis Griggs
 (Reviewed by The Editor - Rebecca Brown)
 2001 Free To Soar, Birmingham, Alabama
  ISBN: 0967300320
Amazon's price is: $12.95

Just days before George Landris is to marry Theresa Jordan, he learns a woman from his past has been in a car crash.

Attempting to explain why he must rush off to parts unknown in his search, he utters the enigmatic question: “Have you ever loved someone that you never had?”

Theresa Jordan is not a philosophy major,[& neither is this reviewer] although, as a Bishop's daughter, she knows the Bible well. Anyway, her mind is filled with preparations for the upcoming Christmas Holiday, & her approaching nuptials at the cusp of the new millennium. She has no idea what George means, & her patience is wearing thin with her absentee fiance. Why is he rushing off to another woman? Who is she? What kind of hold does she have on him?

Meanwhile, George Landris, a man with a past that's about to catch up with him, a head of dreadlocks, a golden tongue at the pulpit which is drawing a larger & larger flock to his church, is tongue-tied when confronted by his fiancee's shrill queries.

As he drives back & forth between Birmingham & Atlanta, to Johnnie Mae's hospital bedside, reconnecting with his past, with his passion, George begins to realize that he cannot go through with the wedding. His heart simply isn't in it, & his fiancee is changing before his eyes.

With relatives arriving for the wedding, the Holiday spirit being imbibed a little too freely, emotions running in overdrive, tensions within the congregation are stretched to breaking point. Pastors are about to be fired, fathers of babies denounced, fathers of full-grown children confess human weaknesses, mothers find grown-up daughters & everyone's secrets fly around the pews on the wings of prayers & rumors.

I am not going anywhere near how Promises Beyond Jordan is resolved. Some juicy secrets surface in unlikely places, good men emerge with their besmirched escutcheons squeaky-clean again, & some acid-tongued women learn about forgiveness & courage.

Vanessa Davis Griggs has written a lively, gossipy, Gospel-coated read -- her energetic dialogues authentically reflect how people can't seem to finish a thought, while others can't hear what's being said.

Not my usual fare, although I enjoyed the build-up of tensions.

Promises Beyond Jordan is a good lesson on what happens when you don't walk your Walk, & talk your Talk. Or, in the culture of this story -- you don't practice what is preached!

More from Vanessa Davis Griggs: Destiny Unlimited & The Rose of Jericho
(09/08/02)

Rebecca