Member Reviews
Jenna is given another shot at life when she receives a donor heart from a girl called Callie. Eternally grateful to Callie and her family, Jenna gets closer to them, but she soon discovers that Callie’s perfect family is hiding some very dark secrets …
This was a good read, but rather too melodramatic and over-blown in some places. It was as though it was trying too hard with too many twists and turns. The parts about the heart transplant and muscle memory were interesting and to be honest I’d rather have known more about this than the convoluted plot. I much preferred the previous book, The Sister.
This is definitely my kind of book. It gave me everything I wanted but I was slightly disappointed with the turn of events which is my reason for 4 stars instead of 5. I already have Louise Jenson's first book, The Sister, all queued up!
This was a great story that grabs your attention quickly and keeps it's pace well. You get to know all the characters quite well so it's easy to follow along. There are twists throughout that keep you guessing and the end is great and not as I expected. I can't wait to read more from this author and would recommend her highly.
The gift is so much more then a psychological thriller to say the ending was unexpected would be an understatement.
Jenna needed a heart transplant or she would die now she wants to know who saved her life by donating their heart.
Months after Jenna begins to have dreams and thinks she is feeling the emotions of Callie the heart donor.
Callie was believed to have been killed in a car crash with no foul play but jenna has a different theory and memories.Jenna will not give up till she knows the truth.
Once I started this book it was impossible to put down.
Thank you Netgalley the Publisher and Author for a chance to review this book
I have to say this book left me very disappointed at the end with so many unanswered questions.
It could have been 3 stars if the plot had been tidied up at the end.
Bear in mind this is also quite far fetched.
My thanks to the publishers, Bookouture and NetGalley for the opportunity to read this in exchange for an honest review.
I gave this a 4.5 stars or 9/10.
Whilst, the story primarily is a psychological style thriller, the subject matter surrounding the transplant and the feelings that Jenna experiences following it are very thought provoking.
In this story Jenna, had feelings that she was experiencing that were foreign to her and that she could only attribute to her new heart transplant. Callie the organ donor died, so that Jenna could live. How did she die though? By following her heart, is she going to find that she has taken on more than she should. Will she ever find out what really happened to Callie and how and why she died?
With plenty of twists and turns, this story will keep you guessing right until the end or will it? To find out then you need to grab yourself a copy and find somewhere comfy to sit while you immerse yourself in Jenna's life.
How do we know how we'd feel if we had something in our bodies that had once belonged to someone else? Organ transplants and donors have a very close connection to me. My cousin at the age of 21 received an organ from someone who had passed away, at the time live donors weren't being used as much as they are now. Fast forward 27 years and he has just undergone his second organ transplant, this time from his sister who was a live donor. I have no idea how he has felt about either operation. I would presume that he is very thankful to both the person who died and his sister for what they have been able to do for him.
Whilst, organ donors and recipients aren't supposed to find out the identities of one another when the organ is received from someone who has passed away. Jenna felt that she had to find out, whose heart she had received and all about them. IS this the right thing to do? Jenna feels that she is being pushed into doing this as she feels that the organ she has received has cellular memory. Cellular memory, is something that I'd never heard about before, but it does intrigue me. Can organs and parts of us (cells) retain memories about things that have happened to us, like our brain does?
This story would make a great reading group read due to it's subject matter.
Thank you to Netgalley and the publishers for an ARC of this book in return for an honest review.
Having enjoyed Louise Jensen's previous book, The Sister, I thought this sounded like a fantastic follow up. I was excited to receive a copy for review.
Although I feel that this book didn't quite live up to my expectations, it was still an interesting read. I felt that the supernatural element of the story made it that much more unrealistic to me. I had been expecting a gritty psychological thriller but found this to be more reminiscent of The Lovely Bones (which I didn't enjoy; book or film).
However, the story was still well written and even though I found myself switched off from the plot toward the end, I found myself compelled to finish the story.
This book was an absoloutly fantastic read. It was one of those books that drops crumbs of information to lead you in the wrong direction and it's done so well that you pick up every one of them and arrive at completely the wrong place.
This was a really fast paced book that kept me up very late at night. The plot twists are fantastically thought out and beautifully written. I cannot wait to read more of Louise's books. A fantastic writing talent
This book could've been a 5 star easily, but lacked things that I need to give a full 5 stars. The story itself is a great edge of your seat suspenseful ride, but the writing and grammar are awful. I would recommend, if you're able to look past bad grammar, editing, and lots of repitation, but if you cannot look past these things, definitely do not read. Excellent in psychological drama, actual writing needs some work!
Ridiculous!! Far-fetched and completely unbelievable. A complete waste of time. I do not recommend this and I will avoid this author in the future.
I have to say how much I enjoyed reading this story. I know it's fiction but I have also learnt a lot. And it's brought back some memories for me in a certain way.
This is about a transplant. A heart transplant.
I'm not going into details as if you haven't read it yet, it's quite fascinating, mysterious, enlightening and scary at the same time.
Fascinating because- a lot of people are on the donor list
Mysterious-because- This was something my dad said when he had a blood transfusion years ago
Enlightening because- there was a fact in this book that I just had to Google. Eye opener.
Scary because- it's perturbing but also comforting to know all at the same time
The plot of the story, the route of the story and the path it leads you down is dark at times but with sunshine. If I'm confusing you, what I mean is, there are two ways to look at this.
The transplant and the effects on the reciepiant and the family of the donor is very emotionally moving as well as very fascinating.
It's a fabulous story that really had me thinking, pondering at times.
There are some twists within the pages that hook you well and truly in by the jugular.
A fascinating superbly written plot.
My thanks to Bookoutour and Net Galley for my gifted copy
This book is difficult to review as you need to completely suspend belief to enjoy it. I found difficult to do this and therefore struggled to relate to the characters and fully appreciate the story. However, it is written in fast paced short chapters, full of twists and kept my interest. I think it will appeal to many fans of the genre.
I'd like to thank Netgalley and the publishers for the ARC.
A thought-provoking psychological thriller from Louise Jensen author of The Sister.
The Gift by Louise Jensen is a tense psychological thriller which introduces the concept of “Cellular Memory”, where the recipient of an organ inherits the donor’s memories.
When Jenna was hospitalized with a heart condition she receives a transplant from a girl called Callie. During her recovery she goes through major life changes. She breaks up with her boyfriend Sam who was about to propose to her and starts suffering from panic attacks and hallucinations. Trying to get her life in order Jenna decides to find out more about her donor Callie and her family. When she meets Callie’s family Jenna realizes that all her dreams were about Callie’s death. Callie’s death occurred in mysterious circumstances and Jenna can’t stop obsessing over it .Against everybody’s advice Jenna starts to investigate and secrets come unraveling .
There were some twists and turns and the concept of cellular memory was explained nicely. I highly recommend this book to psychological mystery lovers and will definitely look forward to more books by Louise Jensen.
Many thanks to the publisher & NetGalley for this advance reader copy in exchange for my honest and fair review.
What if a transplant organ retained the memories of its original owner? And what if that person needed you to know or do something before they could rest? This is the premise of The Gift.
Jenna was dying from a viral infection that attacked her heart when the perfect donor heart became available. Months after recovery, she’s trying to come to terms with all that has happened to her when she starts having weird dreams and feeling as though someone is watching her. The meds she is on are pretty powerful with crazy side effects, and she and her therapist blame it on the meds at first. However, Jenna can’t ignore the feeling that her new heart is trying to tell her something about the donor, something important. And she can’t ignore it. The more she digs into the death of her donor, the more she believes that she’s onto something, but it also becomes apparent that she is putting her life in danger by pursuing it.
The concept was a little bit of a stretch, but it is intriguing and is excellent fodder for this type of book. The story was properly intense and there were definitely moments where I was so caught up in it that my heart was racing…not something that is easily accomplished, I assure you. And the ending was all a great surprise to me, which I loved. I don’t mind figuring it out early on if the book is well written, but I do love being taken for a ride and not being able to pin down a direction. It’s so much more fun when you think you know what’s around the bend, only to find yourself completely off the rails.
How is this for a recommendation: before I’d even finished, I went looking for the author’s other book, The Sister, and purchased it. I think that about says it all, doesn’t it?
Suspenseful story that will keep you reading. Well written.
A really great book, that has kept me enthralled the whole way through. I loved how this book kept me gripped, although I would have liked to have known what happened to Nathan in the end.
After reading and thoroughly enjoying The Sister last year I couldn't wait to read the latest offering from Louise Jensen.
This is another fast paced, well written thriller investigating the cellular memory theory. Can organ donors do more than just save lives? Can you take on personality traits, food cravings, and memories of the donor?
If you want a can't put it down thought provoking read then look no further.
I give this book 5 stars and highly recommend it.
A different kind of thriller that is part medical story, but I found it rather drawn out
Now that I have finished crying, I can finally see my laptop screen to write this review. Not that I have the words just yet . . .
Louise has done it again.
She has completely knocked it out of the park and has brought us all another utterly amazing thriller!
It's a pet hate of many readers and bloggers when books are packaged as psychological thrillers when they are not, this time however, Louise has nailed it! AGAIN!!!!
The Gift brings us the story of Jenna, a heart transplant patient who sets out to discover what she can about her donor, however all is not as it seems, and as she starts to meet the people involved with Callie, the donor, she starts to realise that perhaps Callie's death wasn't the accident everyone claims it was.
I completely fell in love with Jenna; Louise writes in a such a detailed and descriptive way that you cannot help but be drawn into the world of her characters, you feel for them, you love them, you hurt for them. AS much as this IS a psychological thriller, it will mess with your head, there is no denying it, there is also an exceptionally clever undertone of something more, not chick-litty romance, but something deeper, something that grabs your heart and doesn't let go, something that takes you into the lives of characters in a way that doesn't happen with other books. Something that makes you want to keep reading, something that stops from you from being able to put it down, something that makes you never want the book to end. And when it does, you are utterly bereft, you just want more, more words, more pages to turn, more everything!
From the thriller point of view, Louise builds up to such an utterly horrifying ending you will be left shocked and stunned by the revelations! With constant twists and turns, she takes us on a journey that leaves you breathless and desperate to read the next page (ahem, chapter . . . who am I kidding . . . I read it in one sitting!!) As the tension builds and the suspicions mount, you will be kept guessing at every step of the journey as to who has done what and why, but I promise, you will not guess the ending!
My God! It's a bloody corker!!!!
Louise is an exquisite writer, the emotions on the pages are so raw, you can almost feel them, almost put yourself in that situation and feel the things going on as if they were happening to you.
There is no denying that Louise Jensen is THE best new author we have had the pleasure of being introduced to this year.
I know that she was worried that book two wouldn't be as good as the first, that perhaps she hadn't done her new characters justice as she still had Charlie and Grace (from The Sister) on her mind, Louise has documented this on her blog, however, she had no need to worry. The reviews so far by us lucky advanced readers have already been amazing, and I think this shows just how good a writer Louise is, whilst worrying and fretting and sometimes obsessing, that no one will like her new characters, she has written a book that has jumped straight into my Top Ten Books of the Year (I'm not telling you where though, that will have to wait until that blog post!) but not just mine, many, many others too! I've yet to hear a negative comment about it, and why would I?
The Gift is perfect. So perfect in fact that, following my decision to give Frailty by Betsy Reavley 5-Stars . . . I'm pulling out this one for Louise:
MY FIRST EVER GOLD STAR AWARD
I can't think of any other book, or author, who deserves it more!
Louise is fast becoming a household name and I am so excited to see what the future for us, how else she will captivate, shock, stun and thrill us, because, I am in no doubt, this lady is here to stay.