Reviews

500 Miles reviewed by Mrs. Condit Reads Books!

 

BECKY CONDIT’S OPINION: 500 Miles by Parker Williams is an amazing debut book by a talented author. The story flows, the characters are well developed to the point the reader feels like they are real people, and when it was over I wanted more.

You know the cliché, I laughed, I cried? Well, it’s certainly true with this story. Young Mark is separated from his brother Eric and Jase, the young man he has loved since, well, since he figured out what love is. Eric and Jase are being the altruistic men they were raised to be and join the Army to make a difference in the world. So, off they go to Afghanistan and Mark is left to grow up. Alone.

Jase leaves Mark a tape and a note telling him that he will come back to him. As time goes by, Jase realizes he is selfish to ask Mark to grow up without him and just wait for Jase to come back so he… well, I can’t tell you because it would spoil the story but there certainly is a gut-wrenching twist to the plot that you will not see coming, and neither did Mark, resulting in a broken heart and a boatload of guilt.

Then tragedy strikes, and no one is left undamaged. Mark, his mother and father are suffering at home, waiting first for word and then for their men to come home to them. Jase and Eric are wounded and suffering from PTSD. The meaning of the title 500 Miles and the connection to the song becomes so poignant and grabs your heart and soul, not letting go until the last paragraph of the story. Even then, I am in the grip of loving these men and want more.

My dreams came true when Parker Williams offered to write a very special, exclusive post-epilogue snippet for me. Eric is a secondary character but he has a story to tell and it is in this extra little story that he gets his time. Please stay with this post to the end and enjoy Going the Extra Mile – Eric’s Story. There are no spoilers so you can read it now or buy the book and enjoy Going the Extra Mile later. Actually that is another measure of Mr. Williams’ talent – the ability to write a post-epilogue story that carries the original short story along without giving anything critical away that might lessen the reader’s enjoyment of the fundamental plot.

http://mrsconditreadsbooks.com/index.php/?p=12409

MM Good Books Reviews

Title: 500 Miles

Author: Parker Williams

Genre: Contemporary

Length: Short (37pgs)

Publisher: ManLoveRomance (7^th June 2013)

Heat Level: Moderate

Heart Rating:  ♥♥♥♥♥4 ½ Hearts

Reviewer: Pixie

Blurb: Mark loves Jase, but will that be enough to bring Jase back from the brink after a devastating tragedy?

Since he was fourteen, Mark knew he loved Jase, his brother Eric’s best friend. As Jase and Eric leave for the Army, Jase leaves Mark something to hold onto, but when the two men are shipped to Afghanistan, things change when Jase tells Mark he’s met someone. Confused and hurt, Mark is left to wonder what happened. Eric returns, but with devastating news – and needing Mark’s help. Can Mark help the man who broke his heart? Or will he let Jase push him away – for the second time?

Purchase Link: http://www.mlrbooks.com/ShowBook.php?book=PM_500ML

This story is also available in Mixed Tapes Volume 01http://www.mlrbooks.com/ShowBook.php?book=MT1_0000

Review: Mark has been in love with Jase since he was fourteen. When Jase and Mark’s brother Eric join the army, Mark is devastated but he lives for the tapes that Jase sends. But, Mark is devastated when Jase admits he’s fallen in love. And, although Mark tries to get on with his life, the hurt still lingers. When Eric comes home and says Jase needs Mark, the truth comes pouring out, and Mark has to see if he can get over his lingering hurt to help Jase the man he still loves.

This fabulous short story has everything you could want and leaves you feeling satisfied. The story is written over a period of years and the way it is written is very smooth, the transition of flow is flawless. We start out when Mark is fourteen and Jase seventeen. Mark’s hero worship/crush develops into love and then Jase is leaving for the army, leaving Mark a tape. Over the next little while, we see Mark receive more tapes and it just strengthens his love until the day he is told by Jase that he has found love. Mark’s devastation leaps off the page.

Although this is, only a short story it packs a punch. It has a touch of angst, forgiveness, and pure love. What I loved most about this story is that when the truth came out Mark reacted, but didn’t linger too long on it. He faced what was done and finally understood why and he didn’t throw it in Jase’s face. There is angst, but then again it’s teenage first love angst. There are no harsh recriminations and Mark is actually shown to be much older than his years with his actions. Jase does what he thinks is right and you had to admire that about him. When he comes home from the army its one blow after another and the support he finds from Mark and his family just warms your heart.

I have to recommend this to everyone, it is just the perfect short read for some happy ever after that leaves a smile on your face.

http://mmgoodbookreviews.wordpress.com/2013/06/11/500-miles-by-parker-williams/#comment-4182

 

 Hearts on Fire

Review: I have to put it out there that usually the idea of “doing it for you” makes me cringe because I often feel like no, you are doing this for yourself.  In 500 Miles, however, I didn’t feel that way.  I felt like the things Jase did, he did for both of them.

 

Mark is only 14 and already knows he is in love with his big brother Eric’s best friend, Jason.  Jason is older than Mark but treats him as someone of value and makes Eric treat him that way as well.  When the time comes that Eric and Jase are leaving for military service, Mark has a hard time dealing with it.  Remember, he’s a boy of 14 and his brother and his idol are leaving him.  The hug when they left was so lovely and Jase leaves Mark a promise.  A promise that they will come back to him, set to the beat of the Proclaimers 500 Miles (which I have now listened to four times while reading it and now writing the review).

 

Jase’s promise comes in the form of talking on a cassette tape, followed by 500 Miles.  As Mark sets out to keep them company long-distance with comics, letters, gifts, Jase always responds with the cassette tapes, which include the company and Eric, and 500 Miles. “I would walk 500 miles and I would walk 500 more.”

 

Life goes on and Jase is never far from Mark’s mind.  He gets a summer job so he can continue sending “thinking of home” things to Jase and Eric and he makes decisions about college.  It is a devastation for him when Jase himself tells Mark, via cassette tape, that he’s met “the one” he’s going to be with.  There is no 500 Miles at the end of that tape and it seems like such a betrayal to Mark.  Worse when Jase tells him “I want my family to be yours, too.”  How could Jase not know how much this was going to hurt Mark?  The final cassette, from Eric, just pushes everything over the cliff and Jase’s promise has been broken at the tender age of seventeen.

 

The best thing for me about the way Parker Williams writes is that he makes me care about the characters, flaws and all.  You want to hug them or shake them. Mark tries to go about his life even when his emotions are all jumbled up.   As it happens, just after Mark turns 18, the dreaded happens. Both Eric and Jase are wounded, Eric superficially (at least physically) and Jase critically.

 

This changes things and causes painful truths to come out.  There is so much anger, misguided intentions and just plain pain.   The story is about what you do for the ones you love, the sacrifice and hardship.  It is also about how the military expects you to give your life for freedom yet doesn’t extend that same idea to everyone.

 

As always with books I love, I wish it had been longer.  I loved the epilogue so much.  And the scene when Mark throws that “you told me you’d walk 500 miles for me” made me want to cheer for both of them.  Epic!

http://heartsonfirereviews.com/?s=500+Miles

TOP2BOTTOM Reviews

Title: 500 Miles
Author: Parker Williams
Publisher: MLR Press
Pages: 37
Characters: Mark, Jase
POV: 1st
Sub-Genre: Contemporary Romance
Kisses: 5

 

Blurb:

Mark loves Jase, but will that be enough to bring Jase back from the brink after a devastating tragedy?

Since he was fourteen, Mark knew he loved Jase, his brother Eric’s best friend. As Jase and Eric leave for the Army, Jase leaves Mark something to hold onto, but when the two men are shipped to Kuwait, things change when Jase tells Mark he’s met someone. Confused and hurt, Mark is left to wonder what happened. Eric returns, but with devastating news – and needing Mark’s help. Can Mark help the man who broke his heart? Or will he let Jase push him away – for the second time?

Review:

500 Miles by Parker Williams was a sweet, sexy story from start to finish. I loved the smoothly written storyline and adored Mark and Jase together. I found myself really believing in the emotional connection and friendship these two men had for each other and I loved every minute I spent reading the book.

Mark has a dilemma. He’s been in love with his brother’s best friend, Jase, for years and despite his brother’s protests, he spends every minute he can hanging out with the both of them, just so he can be around Jase.

When Jase and his brother enlist in the army, fourteen year old Mark is devastated. Not only will his brother be possibly sent off to Kuwait, the love of his life will too. But when Jase comforts him and leaves him a cassette tape explaining to Mark how much he means to Jase and ends it playing the song, 500 miles by the Proclaimers, Mark’s young heart is filled with hope and he finds himself loving Jase more than ever.

But war will change things and weeks turn to years. When Mark gets a cassette tape from Jase telling him he’s found someone and is in love and it breaks Mark’s heart. But when his brother finally returns home, without Jase, Mark finds out that all is not what it seems and he is soon faced with the choice of forgiving Jase so they can possibly have something in the future.

I really loved this book. I found myself really liking Mark. The story is told through his eyes and he is a realistically written and likeable hero. My heart broke with him as the story progressed, and I rejoiced at the way the book ended. If you are looking for a quick, romantic story that will leave you with a smile in your heart, then 500 Miles is definitely the book for you!

Highly Recommended!

Reviewed By: Gabbi

http://top2bottomreviews.wordpress.com/2013/07/20/500-miles-by-parker-williams/

 

Carol Zampa – Author of Honor C

I get such pleasure from discovering new authors. We all have to start somewhere and I love, love, love the experience of reading the ‘starting points’ of other authors.

Only…well, hell…this new author, Parker Williams, bounded from his starting point and just jetted right into awesomeness!

This scrumptious story, 500 Miles, is part of an anthology, Mixed Tapes, from MLR Press, by the way. And, if I’m not mistaken, it’s Mr. Williams’ first published work. What a beautiful beginning he’s made with this lovely contribution to this collection of stories.

 

It’s the tale of Mark, who is fourteen at the beginning and has a huge crush on his older brother’s best friend Jase. When the brother and Jase both head overseas for the army, Jase leaves Mark with a cassette tape assuring him he will never leave him. Sure, he will be miles and miles away, but his spirit will never be any further than at Mark’s side. And Jase leaves a recording of the song 500 Miles at the end of the message.

That song carries a much deeper message that Mark will one day understand. And so will the reader by the time they’ve come to the end of the wonderful story.

This story immediately touched my heart because (no plot, remember, that’s what the blurb is for…lol) it dragged me back to my own past, to a secret love for a soldier overseas in a war. To a youngster who loves that older sibling’s friend with a yearning that’s not any less true just because the dreamer is just a kid. With me, it was the Viet Nam era, a boyfriend of my older sister’s. Just like Mark in the story, I wrote letters to him, clung to his every response, dreamed of him and missed him something fierce.

I daresay many folks have been in this position and will relate to this poignant telling of just that sort of young love. It’s a common thing, told in a very UNcommon sweetness that was very, very deep and personal and heart wrenching.

The other facet of 500 Miles that impressed me, that was such a delight, was the prose. This is not fancy writing. And by that I mean it’s natural as breathing yet powerful as a heartbeat. It IS a heartbeat, a lovely VERY personal rhythm that melts the reader right into Mark’s very mind and heart. Only problem with that is that the reader’s going to bawl with Mark, hate with Mark, love with Mark, smile with Mark and fly to the moon with ultimate happiness with Mark. The reader is going to BE Mark. And that, my friend, is good writing.

The prose was down to earth. Not like an author telling Mark’s story but like Mark sitting on your porch with you, telling it to you himself. The beauty in that is that you come away from the book knowing Mark and never forgetting him. He made a friend of you.

Mind-blowing perfection in a short package. Perfect characters, very real characters. Perfect, well-synchronized plot fit into that small space. And a perfect ending.

Perfect.

http://authorczampa.blogspot.com/2013/07/500-miles-by-parker-williams.html