Sunday 26 February 2017

The Gift by Louise Jensen

32180692

From Goodreads

The perfect daughter. The perfect girlfriend. The perfect murder?

Jenna is seriously ill. She’s lost all hope of getting the heart transplant she needs to live. But just as her life is ebbing away, she receives a donor heart from a girl called Callie.

Who was Callie and how did she die? Jenna is determined to find out.

The closer Jenna gets to those who loved Callie, the more questions arise about her untimely death. Someone knows what happened to Callie. Why won’t they talk?

Jenna is about to uncover the truth, but it could cost her everything; her loved ones, her sanity, even her life.

A compelling, gripping psychological thriller with a killer twist from the author of the Number One bestseller The Sister.

My thoughts

My thanks to the publishers, Bookouture and NetGalley for the opportunity to read this in exchange for an honest review.

I gave this a 4.5 stars or 9/10.

Whilst, the story primarily is a psychological style thriller, the subject matter surrounding the transplant and the feelings that Jenna experiences following it are very thought provoking.

In this story Jenna, had feelings that she was experiencing that were foreign to her and that she could only attribute to her new heart transplant. Callie the organ donor died, so that Jenna could live. How did she die though? By following her heart, is she going to find that she has taken on more than she should. Will she ever find out what really happened to Callie and how and why she died?

With plenty of twists and turns, this story will keep you guessing right until the end or will it? To find out then you need to grab yourself a copy and find somewhere comfy to sit while you immerse yourself in Jenna's life.

How do we know how we'd feel if we had something in our bodies that had once belonged to someone else? Organ transplants and donors have a very close connection to me. My cousin at the age of 21 received an organ from someone who had passed away, at the time live donors weren't being used as much as they are now. Fast forward 27 years and he has just undergone his second organ transplant, this time from his sister who was a live donor. I have no idea how he has felt about either operation. I would presume that he is very thankful to both the person who died and his sister for what they have been able to do for him.

Whilst, organ donors and recipients aren't supposed to find out the identities of one another when the organ is received from someone who has passed away. Jenna felt that she had to find out, whose heart she had received and all about them. IS this the right thing to do? Jenna feels that she is being pushed into doing this as she feels that the organ she has received has cellular memory. Cellular memory, is something that I'd never heard about before, but it does intrigue me. Can organs and parts of us (cells) retain memories about things that have happened to us, like our brain does?

This story would make a great reading group read due to it's subject matter.

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