The Gift [Audiobook, Unabridged] [Audio CD]

Everyone would love a miracle, especially during the Christmas season. As demonstrated with his mega selling "The Christmas Box," Richard Paul Evans is an author who can make us believe in them. As he writes, "...some things are true whether you want to believe them or not."

An especially touching element of this story is that protagonist Nathan Hurst has Tourette's syndrome as does the author. And, Evans once more finds inspiration for his work in personal experience - a dreadful accident occurred to his brother as it does to the fictional Nathan's brother. Thus, this is a book to encourage and enrich us as it renews belief in faith, hope and healing.

Our story opens with Nathan remembering his childhood. As he says, "Tourette's wasn't the worst part of my childhood." In addition to the ostracization he suffered from other children, his brother suffered a near fatal accident, his father committed suicide, and his mother withdrew. Thus, Nathan was very much alone in the world....until he met Addison Parker and her children, 6-year-old Lizzy and 8-year-old Collin who is desperately ill with leukemia.

Working as an in-house detective for the MusicWorld chain, Nathan has a bad case of bronchitis and is on his way home from a business trip when he is stranded by bad weather in the Denver airport. Also stranded are Allison and her family. She has no place to stay, so Nathan offers to give them his hotel room. It is there that Collin touches him and heals him not only of bronchitis but also Tourette's. Readers learn that each person Collin heals weakens him, bringing him closer to his own death.

As with other stories by Evans The Gift elicits tears as well as offering comfort because we're reminded that no matter what happen in life, "In the end, love wins."

- Gail Cooke

Wow! That was my initial reaction upon finishing The Gift by Richard Paul Evans. What an incredible story! I first learned of The Gift in a review in Entertainment Weekly, and then I came across it while doing some Christmas shopping, and thought I'd pick it up in an effort to awaken my holiday cheer. While not exactly a Christmas story, The Gift does take place around the holidays, and is truly a heart-warming story that did succeed in helping me get in the spirit.

With lots of short chapters, The Gift is a quick, easy read, and one that I could not put down. The characters are well written and completely likable, the dialogue flows and is realistic, and the story is gripping and heartfelt. There are no major shockers in the story, but there were a few unexpected twists, and be warned - there's also a need for tissues. I can't wait to read more by Richard Paul Evans, and I highly recommend The Gift to anyone looking for a heartfelt and miraculous story.

If you would like to get back in touch with that wonderful feeling of giving to others who need help, The Gift is my prescription for you. Too many people feel like they cannot give very much unless they are rich like Bill Gates, talented like a singing star, or as famous as a princess. But we can all share our love, our understanding, a kind word, a prayer, and whatever we have. With God's help, that's often enough.

Richard Paul Evans does a remarkable job of showing how hungry the world is for love and appreciation in The Gift. There's emotional starvation all around us among those who have the riches of the world and covet those riches.

The book's main weakness is that the story isn't explicitly tied into Biblical Christian lessons except in the dust jacket's front flap and an opening quote from James 1:17, such as the ways we can pray for others to be healed and lay hands to assist that healing when we have faith enough. In fact, the book is suggests that healing is something that is physically harmful . . . contrary to Biblical evidence to the contrary. But if you enjoy the kind of amorphous spirituality that many authors like Mitch Albom favor, The Gift is a wonderful gift to readers.

Some will undoubtedly see parallels to A Christmas Carol in that the book involves considerable consideration of past, current, and future life for the book's narrator and there's a fragile child involved who will remind some of Tiny Tim. If that was the intent, I thought that the plot was developed in such a way that it made for interesting and unexpected twists and turns while employing a formula that we all know so well. The only weaknesses in the plot that some may be concerned about are that complications are unraveled a bit too easily, but that seems appropriate for a book about miracles.

I also enjoyed learning a little more about Tourette's syndrome. Like many, my perceptions seem to have been based on misperceptions. As the brother of a lupus survivor, I also was pleased to see a little awareness created for that discouraging disease.

May God bless you with His gifts!