Reviewed by Donna
TITLE: The Greatest Gift
SERIES: The Memories Series #3
AUTHOR: Felice Stevens
PUBLISHER: Self Published
LENGTH: 86 Pages
BLURB:
After five years, Alex Stern and Rafe Hazelton have what seems to be the perfect marriage. Alex is entering his last years of residency and Rafe’s veterinary business is busier than ever. For Rafe, all that is missing is a child, but Alex, afraid of ending up to be a man like his father, isn’t as sure. He doesn’t want to make any mistakes.
When a new patient enters the hospital, Alex is drawn to the young, desperately ill single mother, who shares her fears for the future of her young son. Rafe worries about the toll on Alex becoming emotionally invested in a patient, yet he too can’t walk away once he meets the little boy, and together they vow to help in any way possible.
Families are not always born of blood— love is a gift no one can plan for. And sometimes from the darkest of tragedies, the brightest light will shine.
REVIEW:
The Greatest Gift brings back the much adored couple, Alex and Rafe, from the novel One Step Further. The men have been married for five blissful years but now have come up against their first major point of contention. Both agree that they want children but while Rafe is ready to take that step now, Alex wants to wait. He believes that he spends too many hours at the hospital to be able to be the father a child needs, so he refuses to budge on the issue. But then he meets Jude, a young, single mother who has just been diagnosed with cancer and suddenly the men find themselves with the care of her four year old son, Dylan. It doesn’t take long before Alex and Rafe love the kid like mad, but what will happen when they have to give him back?
I love having the chance to revisit characters and discover how they are going with their happily ever after. I appreciated that the author didn’t mess with my boys too much. Yes, they are in complete disagreement over the child issue, but throughout the whole story you can feel the love between them. When they argue it upsets them both and I loved that they were always quick to reassure each other if insecurities arose. When Alex caused Rafe to start stuttering I wanted to headbutt the bastard, but he I guess he felt bad enough. It was great to see Rafe strong enough to call Alex on his “I’m saying no, so just no” attitude.
Dylan was an awesome child character. He was perfectly written to match his age and at no time did he annoy me, a danger with all books in which a child plays such a big role. This book didn’t have a strong holiday feel to it, instead it focused mostly on Jude’s illness and the men getting to know little Dylan.
The author did a brilliant job of fitting such a complete and satisfying story into less than one hundred pages. It was both sad and joyous, and that cover…it ticks all the boxes.
RATING: 
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