The Gift by Richard Paul Evans

 I love Richard Paul Evans Christmas books.  The Gift a little bit older book that I missed.  It was chosen as the December pick for the Page-turner’s Book Club at the Kewaunee Public Library.  I was excited to read this one and to discuss it with the club last week.

Nathan Hurst works security at Music World.  He travels the country to ensure that employee theft is not happening at their stores.  On one trip, he meets a single mother, Addison, who is trying to get back to Salt Lake City with her two children.  Stranded at the airport, he helps the family out by letting them sleep in his suite at the hotel.  Addison’s son Collin has leukemia, but he also has a special gift to be able to heal people.  Each time he uses his gift, he gets weaker.  He uses his gift on Nathan to cure him of his cold and of his Tourette’s Syndrome.  As the world finds out about Collin, what will he do with his gift?  Will Nathan be able to reconcile his past and move forward in life?

This was a touching story with plenty to discuss.  I didn’t know much about Tourette’s Syndrome, and I like that Richard Paul Evans put in the forward that he has Tourette’s and the symptoms he describes are his own.  Nathan’s back story gets revealed by the end, but I still had a hard time with his treatment of his mother.  She has dementia and is in a nursing home.  He hasn’t visited her in three years!!!  I know they didn’t have the best of relationships, but that just seemed very cold to me.  I did like the romance between Nathan and Addison.  The villains were very one-dimensional, but fun to hate in this story.  This book did make you ponder about what you would do with such a gift and how it could be used for both good and evil.

Overall, The Gift is a touching and thought-provoking Christmas story

Book Source:  Kewaunee Public Library.  Thank-you!