Edited by New York Times Best Seller editor Steve Parolini, “The Gift" is a supernatural thriller that will carry you away to the wintery streets of Europe, and insert you into the struggle against a darkness that haunts an innocent village. A journey that will grip you until the very end, this is a story that will not be quickly, or easily, forgotten. It’s Christmas time, and Fae Peeters is a Canadian exchange student in her grandparents’ native country of Belgium focused on studying architecture. After receiving a vague and bewildering letter from her Grandmother with cryptic instructions, Fae arrives in a small Belgian village to receive an unprecedented Christmas gift. Greeted by a picturesque holiday villagescape, Fae is unable to shake the feeling that the perfection is hiding something, and she worries that it may be connected to her grandmother’s Christmas gift. Almost immediately upon arriving in the village, Fae experiences something she can only describe as the onset of insanity- but is it? Or is it something much darker? The longer she stays in the village, the more disconcerted she becomes as she begins to uncover more mysteries and fewer answers. Desperate to keep a hold on her fleeting sanity, and not wanting to disappoint her beloved Grandmother by quitting the village before she gets her present, Fae befriends the only one who seems to want to help her, to protect her, but even he might not be what he appears…In what becomes a mind-bending, psychological struggle of hidden truths against the darkest of evils, Fae’s fight for her life and for her soul, and the realization of what living through this Christmas Eve will ultimately mean for her, is a wild, supernatural ride that will keep you hungrily turning each page, desperate for more. A Christmas story for the modern reader, “The Gift" is a story of survival that will challenge your perception of the world around you, taking you through suspense, the supernatural, and the Christmas season, in a narrative to satisfy thrill seekers and holiday lovers alike. | The Gift by Stephanie M Matthews, Paperback | Indigo Chapters