Reviewed by Becca
TITLE: Galen’s Redemption
SERIES: Links in the Chain #2
AUTHOR: Parker Williams
PUBLISHER: Dreamspinner Press
LENGTH: 285 pages
RELEASE DATE: April 16, 2019
BLURB:
A rich man is about to set foot into an unknown world, while a Good Samaritan fears he’ll have to close the charity he’s spent his life building. Poised to lose it all, they might find what they need most in each other.
Son of a wealthy importer, Galen Merriweather lives to broker deals, and he’s damn good at it. But it’s getting harder to ignore the kind of man his father is—a man who would pay Galen’s brother’s lover to leave… a man who’d demand Galen retrieve a quarter-million-dollar check from a struggling homeless shelter.
Robert Kotke knows the money is too good to be true, but it’s a godsend that could help so many people. Still, he hands it over when Galen shows up. But he isn’t done with Galen yet, and he’s going to challenge everything Galen ever believed.
Galen will face an impossible decision: the redemption he’s come to realize he wants, or the life he’d always dreamed of.
REVIEW:
First of all, if you haven’t read book 1, Lincoln’s Park, you need to. They coincide and the characters are all associated with each other in some form or other. In this instance, two are brothers. If you remember from 1, we get introduced to Galen, Lincoln’s brother. And it’s not a good thing. This is Galen’s side of the story now, and it’s not an easy story.
Galen kept going to Lincoln’s diner to see him. He wanted to make a connection with his brother but nothing ever came out right. Especially when their father got mentioned. Galen was put through hell. He would never be good enough, according to their father. Their father always threw it in Galen’s face, that he would never measure up. Lincoln was the special child. Until he left. Now Galen is really seeing more of how his father really is. He tried to set up Lincoln’s boyfriend with money. But Noel turned it around on him and donated it to a homeless shelter of his friend Robert. And now Galen has to go get the check. When he meets Robert, it’s nothing like he expects. He’s attracted to Robert but what he’s having to do for his father makes it impossible to act on. But Galen starts to see things around him. And what’s really going on in the shelter. He and Robert start talking. Galen starts helping at the shelter to get Robert what he needs. Now that he no longer works for his father, he’s free at the moment to help. And help is what he wants to do. The more he gets to know Robert, the more Robert shows Galen pieces of himself. Even pieces to make up with his brother. Yeah, none of it will be easy, but he finds out how depraved their father really is. And it’s time to fix that as well. And just maybe, Galen can get the redemption he so desperately needs.
I didn’t think I could loathe someone as much as I do Lincoln’s and Galen’s father. He needs a beat down badly. The sheer torment he has put these boys through. Pitting them against each other, making them both feel the other is better and they will never measure up. Fortunately, Lincoln got out. But it didn’t mean he was away from it. When I really got into this book, it tore me apart at how Galen feels. He has no self worth, so insecure, he doesn’t believe in himself. He doesn’t even really value himself as a lover, because he had to hide. But his father ruined that for him too. When Robert started showing interest, Galen often got defensive, because he didn’t understand what Robert saw in him. To Galen, he was nothing. A nobody. Someone beaten down and broken by his father. And my heart cried for him. Because underneath everything, Galen is a very soft-hearted man. He loves, has passions, is extremely intelligent as well. He deserves someone who sees past the bluster and attitude, to who he really is.
Thankfully, Robert wants that role. Galen has set him on edge from the beginning. Something about the man called to him. When he started learning of what was happening as far as Galen’s father and the drama, he never more wanted to protect someone. But he’s lost someone before. And the homeless shelter takes most of his time. He feels he doesn’t have much to offer Galen. But Galen gives him an offer he can’t refuse. The relationship they have is not easy. At all. With all of the past stuff and the present, obstacles pop up in every direction. But Robert feels Galen is worth everything and Galen is learning to let go and finally find love.
This is kind of a rough story at times. The father of Lincoln and Galen is a bastard. And that’s a nice word. He has done a number on these boys they are still trying to recover from, but they are learning on day at a time. It’s grueling some days, but they are learning to move on and be free. It’s a really great story.
RATING: 
BUY LINKS:
[…] Read More » […]