The Gift

by Deb Stover

Book Overview

Beth Dearborn?s gift?the ability to sense any violent death that has occurred in a dwelling?has been more of a curse to her, causing an emotional breakdown that changed her life. The last thing she... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Mass Market Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0505526069
• ISBN13: 9780505526069
• Release Date: January 2009
• Publisher: Love Spell
• Length: 293 Pages
• Weight: 0.15 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 4.2" x 6.8"

Customer Reviews

A 'GIFTed' romance!

Heroine Beth Dearborn, a recovering alcoholic and working in a newer career as an insurance investigator, hoped that this change in jobs, formerly a homicide detective, would hold back her gift she has been guarding for three years. Beth's gift is to use all her senses when she's reliving what the victim of homicide has. The suffering Beth experience from visually seeing what the predicament, hearing what transpires and being the audience to hearing all including the voices and mind of the criminal, made her 'gift' of hers become her curse. Beth too has strong reactions with her gift when thunderstorms are occurring. They grip her in ways that she loses conscious. She had hoped the changing her career would help repress these episodes as she takes on an assignment to settle a missing person case to declare the victim as deceased. Her gift returns with fierceness as she investigates the disappearance of Ty's wife's and mother of his children. But too, the love Beth grows to feel for Ty and his children too comes with a force that opens up hope, love and life back to her. Our hero Ty Malone is a single cowboy living on a ranch in a small town of Brubaker Tennessee As a loner within himself, giving little to his own needs, his attention, plans and life are for his three children. As he attempts to let go of the history and rumors surrounding the disappearance of his wife eight years ago, he's determined to have his wife, Lorilee declared dead. As Beth is stranded on his ranch, Ty reluctantly accepts the need for Beth to investigate his wife's disappearance for the insurance coverage. Ty planned to close this chapter of his life, knowing some answers may never come to fruition but was unprepared for his reaction to Beth. At the get go their feelings for each other become feverish. He's enamored to seduce Beth but too comes to fall in love with her. As they both seek so many answers in life, together they anchor each other through their healing with a heightened thriller and warm and tender romance. Reading THE GIFT by Deb Stover, so captured me with vivid feelings of a beautiful and exciting romance reading Beth and Ty's romance! The buildup of the drama and the increasing tension of the romance was so potent and pure. I was full of emotions with smiling at their love for one another and tears of the pain they both went through. Both characters had so much growth in this story. Beth had so much to overcome with her past addiction and her gift and Ty with his healing through the lost of his wife for his children and the ability to move on with his love for Beth. There is so much more to this story that I often went back through this review and took out parts so that the reader will too read the surprises and drama that's in store through the events of this book. Long after I read this book many parts of the story and scenes returned to my mine, time after time. But even more, the feelings that overcame me, remained with me, still today. The empathic

I was hooked from the beginning.

Elizabeth "Beth" Dearborn is a former Chicago homicide detective. She used her "empathic gift" to solve all the murder cases assigned to her. Variations of the gift runs in her family line. When Beth opens herself up to her gift, she sees more than a vision of how a person died. Beth actually becomes one with the victim. Beth sees what the victim did. Beth smells what the victim did. Beth can hear what the victim is thinking as if she were thinking it herself. However, it is the last sensation that drove Beth to drink; Beth feels what the victim did. As if it were happening to herself, Beth feels every stab, gunshot, punch, suffocating moment ... For the past three years Beth has worked as an insurance investigator. She has not touched so much as a drop of alcohol. The Avery Mutual Insurance Company sends Beth to Brubaker, Tennessee. After seven years, Tyrone "Ty" Malone, at the urging of his oldest daughter, is trying to have his missing wife declared legally dead. Lorilee had simply vanished. Lorilee's father had received a typewritten letter shortly thereafter, postmarked from London and allegedly from Lorilee herself, claiming she left voluntarily to begin a new life. Those who knew Lorilee well believe the letter to be bogus, because Lorilee would never have left her three kids willingly. When Sarah, Ty's oldest daughter, asks Beth to drop by one night, Beth agrees even though a horrible thunderstorm rages. Upon reaching the foyer of the Malone home, Beth's gift is activated by a trapped female spirit. Stranded at the Malone home due to the bridge washing out, Beth avoids the foyer as she investigates the large insurance claim. Even after three years, Beth cannot let herself open up to her gift. But the foyer's spirit is determined to contact the very reluctant empath in residence. For her, Beth calls in her cousin, Sam. There is no guarantee the spirit is Lorilee or that the spirit would answer Sam's gift. The longer Beth resides in Ty's home, the more she comes to care for those who live there. The attraction between Beth and Ty begins to deepen and threatens to bloom into something much more powerful. Can Beth allow herself to fall in love with Ty and his family? Could Ty possibly believe Beth about her "gift" or would he think her crazy? But most of all, can Beth find out what really happened to Lorilee before whoever is trying to stop her - permanently - finally succeeds? ***** FIVE STARS! From the moment I began reading I knew that I would not be stopping until every last page had been read. The very first sentence sunk its deep hooks within me and pulled me into Beth's story. (I admit that I did not go kicking and screaming either.) The story is very well written, with nothing I would consider to be "over the top" or unbelievable. Backgrounds of the main and secondary characters are well developed and their emotions seem genuine. I honestly believe this to be a fantastic story and Deb Stover carries it off with her usual élan.

exciting romantic suspense thriller

Although she blames her paranormal gift for the her loss of her job, former Chicago homicide detective Beth Dearborn knows alcohol cost her that needed edge, but she used it to numb the dreaded extrasensory feeling of a violent death. She is a recovering alcoholic, who obtained work as an insurance investigator. Seven years ago in Brubaker, Tennessee, Lorilee Brubaker-Malone vanished without a trace. Her teenage daughter persuades her father to have Lorilee declared legally dead and file a life insurance claim with Avery Mutual Insurance. Almost from the moment she meets the father and daughter tandem, Beth senses a restless spirit. She wonders if that could be Lorilee. When a bridge collapses stranding Beth, Ty takes her in. Attracted to him and liking his children, Beth continues to dig for the truth encouraged by something or someone from beyond but knows a mortal is the one trying to kill her. This is an exciting romantic suspense thriller starring a wonderful female protagonist who struggles with dealing with her unique gift that she believes is a curse even turning to alcohol to numb the feelings. The supporting cast in Brubaker are stereotypical small southern townsfolk who use Miss not Ms; surprisingly that enhances the plot of the exciting paranormal investigative romance filled with spins as the northern invader keeps finding clues that make Ty seem guilty of spousal homicide yet not satisfying the spirit that haunts her since she entered the Malone home. Harriet Klausner