Title: A Gift of Time
Author: Jaclyn Osborn
Publisher: Amazon/Kindle Unlimited
Length: 144 Pages
Category: Contemporary, Holiday Romance
At a Glance: A Gift of Time accomplishes what a Holiday Romance is supposed to: it touched my heart, redeemed its ‘Scrooge’, and delivered a Christmas miracle that guaranteed a happily ever after for Jack and Caden.
Reviewed By: Lisa
Blurb: Be careful what you wish for… it just might come true.
Jack Taylor learns this the hard way. He’s a workaholic who wants that highly sought after corner office at the advertising agency he works for, and he’ll do anything to get it—even if that means constantly disappointing his fiance, Caden.
On his way home one Christmas Eve night, he’s dreading the argument he knows will happen once he walks through the door. To make matters worse, he forgot to get a gift for Caden, so he makes a quick stop at a Christmas shop he’s never seen before. Inside, he meets a mysterious man who sells him an antique clock. When he gets home, he and Caden fight, just as he expected, and he ends up sleeping on the couch.
Fuming from their fight, Jack makes a wish to have never met Caden. And it comes true.
Waking up in an alternate reality around Christmas, Jack has everything he’s ever wanted: the perfect job, fancy car, and luxurious apartment. But he soon realizes it means nothing without the man he loves. There’s only one way to reverse the wish: get Caden to fall in love with him before Christmas Eve… or lose him forever.
Review: From the moment Ebenezer Scrooge was forced to confront his ghosts in A Christmas Carol, George Bailey wished he’d never been born in It’s a Wonderful Life, and the Grinch learned the true meaning of Christmas, the concept of the do-over has become synonymous with holiday tales. It is the time for confronting the past, reckoning choices, facing truths, and making amends for shortcomings, and author Jaclyn Osborn has put her own spin on these themes in A Gift of Time, doing so with just the right blend of bitter and sweet to have touched my heart the way a Christmas romance should.
Jack Taylor is a work-a-holic whose selfishness has dire consequences, and he’s about to discover that what he covets is nothing more than a house of cards. Jack, for all intents and purposes, has it all—a solid job and a loving someone to come home to every night. The problem is that Jack wants more. He wants the promotion and the corner office that comes with it, he wants a nicer house and a better car…and if he must make a sacrifice of his fiancé to get it, well, more’s the pity. It seems Jack never learned the lesson enough is as good as a feast, but he’s about to discover the high cost of avarice and the consequences of wish fulfillment.
Caden is the man Jack is willing to lose to gain his deepest material desires. Caden is an anvil around Jack’s neck, the old ball and chain, the burden Jack is beginning to resent for Caden’s love of Christmas and the warm traditions he adheres to—things that chafe at Jack because even if he won’t admit it, he feels guilty for putting his job first and disappointing Caden time and time again, which causes him to place the blame for his anger squarely on Caden’s shoulders. Jack’s material selfishness causes him to behave like a Jackass (with a capital J and pun fully intended) on Christmas Eve. The final straw is when a wish made in the heat of the moment and a clock purchased from a mysterious stranger gives Jack his frosty heart’s deepest desire. And, in the process, strips him of the one thing in his life that ever mattered. Jack is a man who didn’t know what he had until it was gone.
Jaclyn Osborn succeeds in delivering on the be careful what you wish for theme in this heartwarming redemption story. My initial resentment towards Jack for everything from his greed to his thoughts of infidelity to his dismissal of Caden’s feelings began to evaporate as I became invested in the lesson he would learn and the second chance he was being gifted, and in how he would succeed in convincing the man he loves with all his heart to love him back, but had to accomplish it in just a few weeks’ time. The aftermath of a single bitter utterance drove Jack to prioritize his blessings and to appreciate the little moments that had, unbeknownst to him, been his greatest gifts. It’s not until he faces a critical failure and finally learns to focus outwardly that an unselfish act becomes his Christmas miracle.
A Gift of Time accomplishes what a Holiday Romance is supposed to: it touched my heart, redeemed its ‘Scrooge’, and delivered a Christmas miracle that guaranteed a happily ever after for Jack and Caden.
You can buy A Gift of Time here:
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