"Promise" is a collection of essays and observations by New York Times best-selling author Tom Clavin. As he has recently said: "I have had the great good fortune to spend most of my life as a journalist, newspaper editor, and author of books. Those million-plus words were devoted to other people and events - some contemporary, many in other decades and centuries. Especially in recent years I have time-traveled and visited places I have never been and inhabited the minds of people I have never met. Telling stories of others has been thrilling and satisfying and I have managed to make a living doing it. In that part of my life, there are very few stones left un-turned. But there is territory closer to home that has mostly gone unexplored." This book contains a great deal of that material that is "closer to home."