BOOKS n COZY SPOTS BOOK REVIEWS – Finding Parker by Scott Hildreth
5 ~ Stars
Review of ~ FINDING PARKER by Scott Hildreth
Romance/Contemporary
(Purchased at Amazon.com)
Reviewed by Jaycee ~ for Books ‘N Cozy Spots Book Reviews, www.Talon-ps.com
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“Life’s greatest treasures will never be held, purchased, or bartered for. They will only be felt.”
Parker Bale has is a gentleman is all respects. After graduating college and beginning the exhausting search for a job, he’s offered employment, unlimited expenses, and a new BMW by an extremely wealthy eccentric stranger. His new job?
Finding a woman to love. Not a particular woman, but he must look in a particular place. And he must sign a contract. Eagerly, he signs the contract without reading it.
Victoria Fisker’s father died immediately after her birth. Her bed-ridden mother’s addiction to pain pills requires her to be at home every moment she isn’t working as a prep cook. She has never been in love, nor does she feel loved at home. She doesn’t particularly trust people, has no faith in the male species in general, and lives a quiet life keeping to herself.
When Parker meets Victoria, he’s immediately intrigued by her lack of interest in people and her comfort in being alone. Victoria, on the other hand, only recognizes Parker as being a male and believes therefore he can’t be trusted.
Finding Parker’s characters embark on a journey. A journey in which they soon realize they’re finding love where they least expect it. Love for friends, love for family which may not be blood related, and for that one person…
The one who gives you reason to believe for the first time love just may actually exist.
“We fear what we don’t understand, and we find serenity in what we’re incapable of understanding…”
“Having the ability to feel is the greatest gift God has ever given…”
“Ask yourself through the course of each day, if this were my last day on earth, would I do anything different?”
“Live every day as if you’re going to die at midnight…”
“The greatest rewards in life are provided to those who take the greatest risks…”
“One moment of unwelcomed silence is more disheartening than a lifetime of incessant screaming…
And the silence deafens me…
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So, here is the thing: those of you here Finding Parker as I was, don’t expect to find him in the usual places, or at least not in the usual modes for this genre.
Don’t expect to come away unscathed. I doubt a card-carrying sociopath could do so.
Don’t expect…the expected.
The story itself was touching in the extreme. Filled with people who possessed a lifetime of rich character. Each of them from not-so-disparate pasts, but present-days that were, seemingly, world’s apart. The common thread was their ability- – no, their struggle to simply be. To accept how they got to be who they had become and to be at peace with their best. Their coming together as characters in various relationship configurations, forces them to see their individual strengths, but also the strength found in being loved in a part of a greater whole.
No, the story itself, while absolutely beautifully composed and presented, was not unusual in its course nor really unexpected in its conclusion.
The unexpected element will make the reader think. Introspection and insight can be an uncomfortable and not entirely painless process. And while the book is not an exercise in this, as that erroneously implies the reading process is work, the natural flow of the story leaves a reader little choice but to self-examine.
The beauty of the natural history here is that, devoid of the usual sweaty-hanging-from-the-monkey-bars sex, a reader is clear and free to appreciate the clean lines of the lives, their foibles, and the fleeting beauty of all that is important. And how one must grab it. And because of that, this story will resonate on a level you would not have imagined, but will ultimately appreciate.
…I’d just plan to appreciate it with a large investment in both a tissue and chocolate manufacturer…
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FINDING PARKER also received the following ratings:
ROMANCE FACTOR ~ 5
TWIST FACTOR ~ the self-evaluative aspect. Self-acceptance.
BONUS FACTOR ~ an amazingly cathartic cry
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