Another brilliant book by Emily Stone. I loved ‘Always in December’ and ‘One Last Gift’ certainly didn’t disappoint. I found myself so invested in Cassie’s journey and the hurdles she faced throughout the story that left tears dripping down my face. The book shows love across different relationships- friends, siblings and lovers and the power that love can have to take lives in different and often better directions. I enjoyed the warm feeling the book gave me about the Christmas period and the setting across the world but with a main focus on London and Wales.

Last year I read always in December so when I seen Emily's new book on netgalley I just had to try to get it and I'm so glad I did.

I'm struggling with words for the review because it was just such an amazing book. It's got me by the heart and has been the best book I've read in a long time. It's actually on par with my favourite book. I love Christmas so this really was the perfect book for me (even though I read sitting at the caravan in 30 degree heat). I was laughing, sighing and crying reading this book.


The story covered lots of things, friendship, grief, family, self belief and pushing yourself out your comfort zone.

This book is such a beautiful heartwarming read. It follows siblings Cassie and Tom who's parents died when they were young. Tom is everything to Cassie along with his best friend Sam. Tom started a tradition of a scavenger hunt for Cassie for Christmas every year after their parents died. 20 years later Cassie has now lost Tom too. However when a friend cleaning out flat she came across a letter with Cassies name on it and Cassie knew exactly what it was the start of the scavenger hunt.

I loved this book I was so excited when I got this book didn’t take me long to read it I love Emily Stone as a character. This book is a emotional read with love grief and anxiety topics I loved the story a magical story as well. Loved the characters the writing style just a amazing book.

One Last Gift by Emily Stone
5/5 ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Recommend ✅

Oh my goodness, another fantastic book from @emstonewrites , your books always get me sobbing 😭 Thank you so so much for sending me an advance copy, I absolutely loved Always in December so I was so excited to get the ARC for One Last Gift!

We get dual perspectives from Cassie and Sam, I loved seeing their behaviour from the others point of view and felt really connected to the characters. This book is another brilliant emotional read and has Christmassy vibes throughout.

The ebook and audiobook are out now and the audiobook is narrated by one of my favourite narrators, Heather Long! The paper back is out in October, and I highly recommend this one!

There's a lot of different type of love stories, there's a lot of gifts that change our life, there's some story that makes you cry and smile.
A life affirming and heart wrenching story, a gift that can help to heal and start again.
I loved this story and I appreciated how the author was able to deliver a novel that is never mushy or over the top.
Great storytelling and character development, a well plotted and emotional charged novel.
Highly recommended.
Many thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for this ARC, all opinions are mine

A fabulous book! Absolutely full of emotion that had me reaching for the tissues on many occasions. Loved it!

I loved Emily Stone’s last book Always in December so was really excited to read this latest one.
Whilst this was a slow starter, the further I got into the story, the better it got.
The strength of the book was the fabulous characters, richly portrayed, interesting and very real.
A story about love for your family, love for others and moving on from a very low point. Heartwarming and moving, I really enjoyed reading this.
4.5 Stars

Having read Stone’s previous book, Always in December, I was looking forward to this one and it certainly didn’t disappoint. It’s an emotional read about love, loss, grief, learning to move on but one that leaves you with a smile on your face - with Christmas at its heart, it is nevertheless the ideal book to curl up with, whatever time of year!

Having lost her parents as a young child, Cassie is extremely close to her brother Tom who has always been her protector. When he unexpectedly dies shortly before Christmas, she struggles to know how to move on without him. But when she discovers that Tom has left her one last gift - their annual tradition of a treasure hunt Tom sets for her - she is sent on a life-changing journey. And along the way she has to navigate her complicated relationship with Sam, her brother’s best friend, who is also struggling to deal with Tom’s death.

Heartbreaking at times it is a book full of characters who feel very real, it’s a book that will give you all the feels.

This was wonderful. Emily’s books are obviously going to be there for when I need a good old cry. There was a romance of course but this book was more about the love and relationship between siblings, friends and family. This book is a reminder that life is often too short.

I absolutely loved the journey around London with Cassie while she collected her clues. I especially loved how she felt she had to do so much of it alone. Her grief was tangible and therefore so was her healing.

There’s an absolutely glorious cast of supporting characters in this book too! I loved switching from what Cassie was experiencing and feeling to how things were going for Sam. It was tempting to think of him as a bit of an enemy but then it became clear he was hurting too. The romance that eventually fell into place was so much sweeter because it was so hard won.

I just can’t wait for the emotional wringer that will be Emily’s next book!

I loved this book so much. It’s such an emotional but beautiful read. Definitely a must read this winter!

An utterly enchanting and emotional novel about love and romance.The author manages to infuse a thoroughly evocative atmosphere into a page-turner plot The overall feeling from reading this book is like being enveloped in a warm hug from that special someone in your life.

Such an emotional book, the more delicate of us definitely need a box of tissues. Beautifully written festive book, totally recommend. Thank you netgalley for the advanced copy

I love Christmas fiction and this was another fantastic example of it. Cassie, our heroine, is lovable and you're rooting for her straight from the start.

An emotional roller coaster of a book, it's a definite recommendation from me.

If, like me, you are an emotional reader, please make sure you have a box of tissues or two at hand whilst reading this. The title and blurb let you know that this will not be an easy read, but it is undoubtedly a very worthwhile and fulfilling one. With themes of friendship, loss and grief, found family, being brave whilst scared, and love in all its many shapes, sizes and colours, One Last Gift is an utterly captivating read. So much so that I couldn't put it down and read until the early hours of the morning in my desire to finish it.


I had worried that reading a "seasonal" book in August would temper my enjoyment, but despite many of the scenes being set during the Christmas period, this book can be read year-round. Whilst there are jumps in the timeline they are clearly labelled, allowing the reader to readily stay abreast of the when as well as the where. We also get much-needed chapters from Sam's point of view, they were intrinsic to the success of this book in terms of understanding character motivation and seeing growth. I also appreciated that the author kept the timeline linear rather than hopping around as it allowed the reader to warm to both Cassie and Sam before fear, bad decisions and tragedy tore them apart.


One Last Gift is very much a character-driven story and those characters were engaging, easy to like and imperfectly human. They made mistakes and let fear rule them but not conquer them, facing up to those fears and discovering bravery isn't in doing something but in doing something despite being scared. I loved that through the letters and recollections of others Tom remained an active character with Cassie getting to know him in new ways.


This is a new-to-me author who has firmly placed herself on my reading radar. I very much plan on reading her first book, Always, in December and look forward to reading future work by her too.

What a beautiful story about loss, grief and learning to cope and live again.
I found this an easy to read book even though it touched on some quite difficult subjects. The story was interesting and told a wonderful tale following Cassie through the last treasure hunt from her brother Tom, following in their Christmas tradition.
The characters were all well fleshed out so you cared about what was happening and seeing them evolve and time passed. I will be looking out for more by this author as I did enjoy my time with this book.

I received an ARC of, One Last Gift, by Emily Stone. This is such a sweet story, it made me cry. The characters are lovely, and the treasure hunt was fun.

Tom and Cassie Rivers are brother and sister. They lost both parents when they were young and were taken in by their maternal Aunt who was of course grieving the loss of her sister. Tom, the older of the two siblings, looks after his little sister just like he has seen his parents do. He became her hero and protector and this is just how she liked it best.
Tom’s best friend is Sam Malone and for as long as Cassie could remember back to her childhood, Sam was in her life too. Sam’s father left home soon after Sam was born and the two boys are like brothers. Both of them are kind to Cassie and included her in their games and plans.
In adulthood nothing changed. Tom is adventurous and creative. He has always arranged treasure hunts for Cassie to solve at Christmastide. It became a family tradition. She loves this game where she is treated like a princess, the one who is loved and gets attention from the boys. This next Christmas will be epic: Tom has promised it would be his best ever treasure hunt. Cassie knows she is in for a humdinger of a treasure hunt and she cannot wait to see what happens.
Tom and Sam are due to go on a climbing holiday together. At the last moment Sam cannot go. Unphased, Tom gets on the plane and goes alone. He was always outgoing and friendly. He teams up with an American man called Toby and they arrange to go climbing together. Sadly Tom falls and does not survive. Toby phones Cassie to break the bad news and she is totally devastated. She imagines life without her big brother and doesn’t think she can cope. Sam is also in a terrible state. They can’t help each other because they are both grieving: survivor’s guilt hits Sam like a thunderbolt.
Then Cassie finds an envelope addressed to her. She recognises the writing straight away. It is from Tom and inside it are the clues to this his grandest treasure hunt. She wonders if she has the guts to take on the challenge. Tom has always been with her to help solve the clues before. The promise of a gift on the conclusion of her tasks is enticing. Cassie takes her time to decide what to do and when she feels strong and brave enough, off she goes, supported by work colleagues and precious long-time friends.
I enjoyed reading this story. The storytelling was good and the storyboard full of exciting ideas. The main characters were carefully developed, eclectic and supportive. I liked the tinge of a romance, but thought the last part of the story was uneven in pace, and I felt disappointed in that. What I really enjoyed in this novel is the different threads of information about the other characters that I have not mentioned in my review. I loved the pub landlady Linda Hill’s dilemma, Amy’s love story with Tom and how Cassie’s friends supported her. I loved Cassie emerging and striding forward, ready to be brave and even keen for new challenges in her life without Tom or Sam. I did not identify with any of the main characters because they dithered and held up the main story. This was quite frustrating and I wanted the pace to match my first expectations. I much preferred the first half of the story and also the satisfying final outcome.
I’d like to thank both NetGalley and the publisher of this book, Review, for my copy, sent in return for an honest and open review. These are my own opinions without any other influences taken into account. This is my 3.5* review and a recommendation that this story is a good read. I have never read any other books written by Emily Stone, and I was glad that my wish to review ‘One Last Gift’ was granted.

Thanks to Netgalley and publisher for the advance read of this book.
This was an emotional read, I loved it. My favourite character was definitely Cassie. There was a very satisfying end to this book
I've just downloaded this authors previous book and I look forward to reading this too

Thank you to the author, publisher and NetGalley for letting me read this arc.

It has always been Cassie, her older brother Tom and Toms annoying best friend Sam for as long as she could remember. However when a tragedy occurs they go from a trio to a duo. 

Cassie doesn’t know how she will ever get over this tragedy but then she finds an envelope and it’s a treasure trail to one last gift. One last memory to hold onto. 

Emily Stone has done it again. One of my favourite books last year was Always In December. This book is just as beautiful and such a moving story.

People often ask why books make you cry and it’s because when a book is written so amazingly you actually envisage the characters they become almost real, like watching a film in your head. This book made me cry and to me that’s the sign of a brilliant writer and book because it taps into your feelings.

It did feel a little strange reading a Christmas book in July but I absolutely loved this book. Highly recommend.

This book destroyed me - in a really good way. It was beautifully written with a compellingly enchanting storyline and well developed characters that I took to me heart. This was such an emotive read and I cried most of the way through it and I didnt even care.