A Gift To Remember By Melissa Hill

[amazon_link id=”B00BOSIT3C” target=”_blank” ][/amazon_link]’A Gift To Remember’ is the latest book by Irish author, Melissa Hill.

One day when cycling to work, Darcy accidentally crashes into a sharply dressed gentleman walking his dog. He is knocked out cold, rushed to hospital and the poor pup and a gift wrapped package are left behind. Wracked with guilt, Darcy takes the dog and vows to reunite both him and the mysterious gift with owner, Aidan. As she discovers this strangers world of books, travel, adventure and all the wonderful things she’s ever dreamt about. Darcy builds a picture of the man and wonders if he could be the one.

To say that I enjoyed ‘A Gift To Remember’ would be an understatement, as the whole time I was reading the book, I was tweeting about it flat out. Such a wonderfully, beautiful and creative story that I found almost impossible to put down.

The majority of the story is seen through the eyes of Darcy, a young bookseller who is hopelessly in love with books and dreams of one day finding her own Mr Darcy, but fate works in the strangest of ways as one day she runs into Aidan Harris, leaving the young man with no memory and ending up with her left with a mysterious parcel and well-mannered Husky by the name of Bailey. Darcy is a wonderful lead in the story, with a strong passion in reading and a soft kind hearted nature, she believes in love and happy ever after, but doesn’t seem to think that this sort of life is for her. At her most happiest with her head stuck in her book, she brushes off her aunts love recommendations, seeking solace in Pride and Prejudice, she enjoys Mr Darcy and finds the men of this generation not quite as interesting but with the introduction of Aidan Harris in her life, she begins to wonder if love may indeed be for her.

Occasionally there were chapters seen through Aidan’s eyes as he tried to piece his life back together and I enjoyed this chapters immensely, as they added a wonderful sense of mystery to the tale. As the male lead, I thought Aidan was quite an impressive one, with a heavy masculine presence that radiated charm and wit, with each scene that he was in, I imagined Patrick Dempsey standing in front of Darcy.

Other characters in the story made also for entertaining reading, Darcy’s workmate Joshua added an element of fun to the story, whereas her aunt Katherine with her no-nonsense temperament occasionally added a sharp dose of reality to the whimsical tale and of course there was the wonderful Bailey, the sharp and cuddly Husky that everyone seemed to fall in love with.

One particular element to the story that I thought was particularly clever was the addition of famous quotes at the start of each chapter. I found myself regularly taking photographs and jotting down these inspirational messages, each time replacing a new favourite one! Wonderfully written from the start, I found ‘A Gift To Remember’ a captivating and absorbing story that is most definitely the perfect Christmas story to snuggle up, with the perfect mixture of enchanting characters, the picturesque location of New York at Christmas and most importantly a magical and mysterious storyline, Melissa Hill has created the perfect festive escapism tale.

You can pre-order [amazon_link id=”B00BOSIT3C” target=”_blank” ]A Gift to Remember on Amazon [/amazon_link] and will be available to buy from good bookshops from 24th October 2013.