Review - Review - The Promise of Sacrifice by C.J. Dragon

Note: The books of this series are very much meant to be read in order. If you haven't read the first book, this review of the second may contain some spoilers.

Jon has been given permission to visit Earth to get surgery that might fix the damage to his heart caused by the Daranii torture. His life-mate Talin will accompany him along with their guard. Jon is overjoyed at the chance to see his family, who were told he was dead. They will have six months to reconnect before Jon and Talin have to return to Daran. While his family is happy to see Jon and accepts Talin as part of the family, there are those on Earth who are still unhappy with Daran over the war which humans started. Things are also getting unsettled back on Daran, where acceptance of Jon’s sacrifice is far from universal.

“The Promise of Sacrifice” picks up the story of Jonathan Thomsin right where The Price of Surrender left off, so you need to read that book before this one. We follow Jon and Talin to Earth, where Jon gets life-saving surgery and gets to spend time with the family he didn’t expect to see ever again. It’s once again an emotional roller-coaster as Jon and Talin are compelled to tell their story, hoping to build peace between the two worlds. I found it very hard to put down.

The story is, once again, related almost entirely from Jon’s point of view. This story reinforces the impression we have of Jon from the first book. He doesn’t think of himself as a hero, but Jon is always determined to do the right thing, even if it puts him at risk. In this book, Jon not only has to undergo the risk of surgery, he also has to face the demons that haunt him from his ordeal as the sacrifice. It’s clear he has PTSD, and Jon finally admits he needs to seek treatment for his mind as well as his body.

Jon and his Daranii husband are practically joined at the hip now, so we get to learn a lot more about Talin in this story. We get to see more of the warrior side of Talin, who is now the head of Daran’s Warrior Order. Talin is clearly very devoted to Jon, but his need to protect his mate sometimes goes into overdrive. It ends up causing Jon more harm than good.

Without spoiling things too much, this volume ends with things very unsettled. The situation will presumably come to a satisfactory conclusion in the third and final installment of the series.

“The Promise of Sacrifice” is available from Smashwords or Amazon (commissionable link).