Promise Me Tomorrow by Donna Jo Stone

Promise Me Tomorrow, a Fictional Look at Grief, Love, and Growth  by Donna Jo Stone

Grief is universal, yet isolating. Novels and stories about loss allow us to confront difficult emotions from a distance, by stepping into another person’s life, even if that person is fictional. It’s comforting to recognize that someone else (whether the characters, the author, or fellow readers) has felt something similar, and has survived.

Promise Me Tomorrow is a story about a family dealing with grief, but besides dealing with an impending loss, the main character, Nina, must handle the typical teen issues. She has the day to day of keeping up her grades, occasional fights with her best friend, and navigating first love.

My hands ached to cup his cheeks. I felt like a hundred-million hues. He was my deep violet and stormy blue, my calm forest green and happy yellow sunshine. I’d missed him.

She does all this while hoping to make an impact with her art (with the help of a rag-tag group of classmates who grow close as they work on the school mural project). She longs to make her mom proud. Typical teen stuff.

But Nina is not typical.

She struggles with communicating her feelings, and when her mother decides to forego further cancer treatments, Nina does not handle that decision well. At all. Processing this kind of tragedy is tough for anyone, let alone a teen on the autism spectrum.

At one point, she skips school to go—on her own—to her mother’s oncologist with the idea she can demand an audience with the doctor, even though skipping is “against the rules” and not something she would normally do. Predictably, Nina’s plan doesn’t work out. The doctor can’t tell her anything, and when Nina returns to school she’s caught.

The next morning at school, I marched straight to the office and turned in my signed note to the bored-looking student helper, a goth girl I hadn’t seen before. The receptionist, Mrs. Lily, was there, but withheld her usual friendly greeting. Instead, she ignored me and peered at a computer screen through her purple-framed glasses, her pinched mouth telegraphing disapproval. 

She shot me a sour look. “I didn’t expect to see you here. At least not for skipping.”

Before the skipping incident, I’d never, ever been sent to the principal’s office for breaking a rule. The opposite, in fact. I was the kind of girl trusted to bring notices and messages to the office staff. But that didn’t seem to matter. Pretty sure Mrs. Lily wouldn’t be sneaking me a package of gummy dots today.

I liked being an office pet better than a troublemaker.

Grief makes people act out, sometimes in unexpected ways.

The news of Mom’s terminal cancer affects the thoughts and behaviors of all the other people touched by the impending loss: Nina’s twin brother Will, who is also on the spectrum. Her dad, friends, family. And Nina’s mom.

There’s a lot at stake when time is ticking by.

Each character in Nina’s story deals with their overwhelming emotions in their own way, some with actions easily understood, and others with a response or behaviors that are puzzling. For example, Nina’s brother, Will, often does things that make no sense to those around him. But in a specific instance, the motivation behind his actions become clear to Nina, and she comes to understand it as his way of dealing with his mother’s illness.

We all process differently, and grief never fully disappears, but it does change over time, and it changes those who experience it. People (whether real people or characters, whether typical or non-typical) who go through great loss emerge from their trials changed. When we, as readers, travel with characters and read about how they do this, it gives us hope that we too can come out of the valley, survive the hardest things, and find healing.

I hope Nina’s story fosters compassion for those who process and express themselves a little differently, and I hope it helps grieving teens (and others) understand they are not alone in their pain, even when it seems no one understands.

About Promise Me Tomorrow

All sixteen-year-old autistic artist Nina thought about before was earning the privilege to paint the school mural, and possibly untangling her emotions about a certain boy. But then she found out about her mom’s terminal cancer. After that, nothing mattered except finding a miracle cure for Mom.

Small Town Contemporary YA with Sweet Romance

Available in ebook, print, and on Kindle Unlimited

Amazon Link: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0F3TSVZGF

ACFW 2025 Carol Award Winner Donna Jo Stone writes southern-flavored fiction for the inspirational market. Her stories are often about people facing tough times, but she strives to write novels that leave the reader with a sense of hope. When she’s not writing, reading, or talking about writing or reading, she loves spending time with her family and friends or creating art. You can read her thoughts on books at her blog, or find writing advice at Almost an Author, where she writes the YA column.

Invite Donna Jo to speak with your group via zoom! Visit her website at donnajostone.com to find out how.

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