Friday, September 20, 2019

Stained Hearts (Links in the Chain: Book Three) by Parker Williams | Cat’s Review & #giveaway @Dreamspinners @ ParkerWAuthor @TTCBooksandmore


A Links In the Chain Story
Can two hearts stained by past pain find healing together?

Tom Kotke held his husband of twenty-five years on the day he died and spent nearly a year adrift. Determined to force Tom back into the world, his family takes him to the Park View Diner, where he meets young stained-glass artist Aiden Dawson. For a brief moment, Tom doesn’t think about his deceased husband—a terrifying prospect.

Slowly, Aiden draws Tom out of his shell and helps him feel alive once more. But Tom isn’t the only one who has suffered. Aiden fears no one sees beyond his wheelchair. Even if Tom can convince him he’s different, they’ll still have to overcome their age difference and a secret that could destroy their future together.

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Cat gives this one 5 Meows...

I love his series. Each book just gets better and better, but Galen had me with bad boy seeing the light in Galen's redemption. Tom steals the series. He is an older man, been married to the one love of his life for over twenty years and loses him to cancer.  Yes, I cried. and Parker Williams doesn't let it go with the funeral... no there are notes Brian has left Tom throughout the story to help him move on. so I cry each time this happens, or Tom talks to Aiden. And Aiden is a young artist that hasn't had life easy.  disowned by his parents, bullied in school and nearly every time he is on his own. so more ugly cries. See why I say keep the tissues handy. now is this a sad book? no not really.  It is about a man that has lost his love and finally finds new love but has to fight the demons in his mind first.
It's a beautifully written, heartfelt story that gives you all kinds of feels. I highly recommend it.


Excerpt…
THERE IS a moment, just as twilight gives way to total darkness, when everything over the lake is still. It’s like the world is holding its breath, waiting to see what’s going to happen. It’s during this one, singular moment when I feel… free from the memories. Of course, like they always do, they surge back when I realize I can’t cling to that magical second any longer.

In October, Brian and I bought a cabin near Crivitz, Wisconsin. A quiet, peaceful tract of land where we could lie together and love each other as much as we could. I had a company come in to fix it up, so after we shared Thanksgiving dinner with our family, we could pack up our things from our home in Milwaukee and move into the cabin. The place was beautiful, but I don’t know how much of it Brian really saw. Each passing day he got weaker and weaker, and each day I wished I could freeze time.

When January came around, we went home to Milwaukee for a little while. Brian told me he wanted to go back and say goodbye to our friends and family. The trip was awful, what with my mother and father spending hours locked away with Brian, and him wanting some alone time with my brother, Robert, and his lover, Galen. After finally meeting with Lincoln and Noel, Brian also asked to go to Lincoln’s diner alone so he could sit and talk with Noel. It hurt me to have him away from me, but I understood his need to be by himself for a time. It still sucked.

I remember the night clearly. There was a haze over the lake, and the clouds obscured the moon. Around us, the night air filled with sounds, like the animals were doing whatever it took to make Brian happy. We sat there, holding hands in our little bit of paradise, where nothing bad could happen. Only… it could. Brian wanted to stay here because he didn’t intend his last days to be spent being fussed over by our friends and the family we’d created. The thought that they pitied him made his heart hurt, because Brian was the healer. He needed to make everyone else feel good. And now it was he who needed the healing, but we both knew it wasn’t going to come. The doctors had given him less than a year. He swore to me that he would prove them wrong, and he did. Being the fighter he was, Brian stretched it out to five. But every hourglass runs out eventually.

One night, just as twilight was giving way to total darkness, he reached for my hand.

“I love you.”

My throat seized. I knew what he was doing, but I wasn’t ready. Not yet. “I know.”

“You have to let me go.”

Happily Ever After Comes With A Pricetag Parker Williams began to write as a teen, but never showed his work to anyone. As he grew older, he drifted away from writing, but his love of the written word moved him to reading. A chance encounter with an author changed the course of his life as she encouraged him to never give up on a dream. With the help of some amazing friends, he rediscovered the joy of writing, thanks to a community of writers who have become his family. Parker firmly believes in love, but is also of the opinion that anything worth having requires work and sacrifice (plus a little hurt and angst, too). The course of love is never a smooth one, and Happily Ever After always has a price tag.



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