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The Gift cover art

The Gift

Written by: May Archer
Narrated by: Alexander Cendese, Iggy Toma
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Publisher's Summary

Daniel: I suck at relationships and don't trust anyone, but there are reasons for that. For one thing, every person I've ever cared about has let me down. The only recent exception: O'Leary's town veterinarian...my new best friend.

I came to O'Leary for a fresh start. To pare things down to essentials. To forget about the failures in my past. The last thing I need is complications, and most definitely not a boyfriend.

Julian: I've lived in O'Leary my entire life and learned to fly under the radar a long time ago. I do what's expected, say what's expected, and keep to myself as much as possible. It's a hell of a lot simpler spending my time working with animals than trying to interact with actual people. The one unlikely exception: the gorgeous guy who moved to a cabin just outside of town and somehow became my best friend.

But friendships are complicated, and one morning I find myself accidentally telling the whole town the biggest lie of my life. Which is how Daniel Michaelson, my very straight, very hot best friend becomes my fake boyfriend, even though he's most definitely not my lover.

©2019 May Archer (P)2019 Tantor

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I enjoyed the book very much

Love the story and performances was great, it was also educational for me as a mother of a gay son.

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Simple trust and honesty goes a really long way. it's absolutely sweet and heart melting!

After the first book, This book is really so much of an upgrade for me.
I always have a love for friends/enemies to lovers romance.

Being narrated by Alexander Cendace and Iggy Toma as always make every books' immersion rocket up into stratospheric level. I do feel like we don't give these guys, or every narrator who are basically voice actors enough credit. The amount of immersive experience they provide is absolutely outstanding. For me, reading amazing books are incredibly amazing but reading a books that's narrated by these guys is just give pure bliss very time.

The book being really heart warming is also another thing.
Julian and Daniel is amazingly cute together in the most heartfelt way. The way the story emphasize the absolute importance of communication, trust, honesty is truly inspiring.

It's simplest yet the most effective and most important thing to do on any relationship.
However, it might also be one of the most hardest thing to do in a relationship. Then again, any romantic relationship in of itself is very scary and can be so difficult.
This simple yet important gesture; Honesty and trust, is the most effective and efficient way to keep building a healthy long term relationship.

Some people believe on soulmate, some in fate, others in lack of faith for themselves.
I believe relationship is what we make them and what we do with it. Sure many of us might experience bad fate and there are times where luck seems to run out completely. But I think it's a most of the time we can still make it the way we wanted it to be. Sure might very difficult but that always a given in a relationship.

Most of us can make our own path of fate. Others might confuse other people's path as their's.
It's when people give up and "leave things to fate" is the moment they choose path that isn't their's. It's when trauma, emotions, and memories of the past choose our fate for us in the present and therefore our future.

It's important to differentiate what we truly want, from what our emotional trauma of the past make us do which what we often thought is what we want.

Are we afraid of the future because it's a true unknown that never happened before? Is it a realistic future in anyway?

Or are we afraid of the future because we will become like our past? A very much realistic future that did happened already?

Worse still, are we making the future like our past due making action based on negative emotions?

A self-fulfilling prophecy: A self-sabotage.
We are scared of the past emotions so much that the more we avoid the emotions for it the more our future became our traumatic past ironically.
One the keeps going on and on like orbiting a planet full of the traumatic emotional black hole.

I found that one of the solutions is to just stop fighting our own emotions. Emotions both positive and negative are equally important: very, very important.

They are in of itself a communication system that our subconscious make to our consciousness.
Just like an other relationship, A healthy relationship with ourselves involves honesty and trust to ourselves and the emotions we are feeling.
A communication spoken not words and thoughts but through emotions. We need feel those emotions and not fight them. Just like any other relationship, it's very painful, scary and hard thing to do. Although it's some things we must do in order to move on.

For how can we trust and be honest with the person we love if we don't even give to ourselves the same.
Do we even know how trust and honesty truly is; if we never even given some to ourselves?

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