One strange gift, with many new opportunities as a result

Synopsis

Three years ago, Joy Pentire lost her firefighter husband and she still hasn’t returned to the woman she once was. But then she meets Hope, one of the residents at the nursing home where she’s a carer.

Hope has a secret gift that she wants to pass on.
And Joy’s life is forever changed.

Surrounded by the community in her Cornish hometown, Joy’s unexpected inheritance soon leads to new opportunities, new friends, new love, and the part of herself she’d thought forever lost … her joy.

My review

After losing her husband three years ago, Joy Pentire has been a different woman. Not only does she work as a care – taker in a nursing home instead of working at school. And despite her name, she has also lost her own joy…
But she surely doesn’t expect that a gift giving by one of the residents of the nursing home, Hope, will change her life forever.
Because that jar filled with pebbles will give her new opportunities, new friends and the thing that made her “her. But that jar is also the start of discovering her “abilities” and power to give others that extra push they need.

Oh how sad the character of Joy was at the start of her tale…
It broke my heart to see how she had found the love of her life, but then lost it in a tragic way… I understood her how she didn’t want to live her life like she did when her husband was still around.
And I understood how she didn’t want to move on and even have the thought of meeting someone else. Because nobody could be more perfect than the man she had and lost…

It’s obvious that Joy is more than just a caring person. Not only does she truly look after the residents of the nursing home, each time the home loses someone, it breaks Joy’s heart too.
But not only her job at the nursing home proofs how caring she is, it’s also her previous job that shows how much she always wants to help other people.
And even after work shoe doesn’t hesitate to go check upon resident Hope.

I have to be honest, the gift that Hope gives Joy, it was an odd one. Especially as Hope starts to explain the power of that gift.
I don’t believe in such “hocus pocus” stuff, but I loved the message behind it.
Because by one simple action, Joy is able to change the lives of those around her for the better.

I loved to read how initially Joy was very sceptical like me, but slowly she realizes how she can around.

And slowly, the gift is giving her also the much needed strength and power to change her own life.

It warmed my heart to see how Joy started to pick up small piece after small piece of her life again, and dares to step out in that big scary world again.
Not only does she now has the courage to start a new job, but she meets new people, that need her help, but she needs their help also.

The gift is somewhat magical, but I don’t see that the physical gift is the real message of the story. For me, it was more the ability and perceptiveness to see who is in need of help, as small or big as it is. It can be to give a slightly nudge in the right direction, or just being a listening ear, offering a place to crash etc.

And that is what made me continue reading, because I didn’t see each pebble as itself being the solution, but I saw how Joy offered help, just because she sees where she is needed.
And by helping, she slowly gets her heart healed too. And she sees a whole new life ahead of her. Not the life she expected to have with her husband, but a different one, with new characters having all a part in it.

This story warmed my heart because of the message but it also worked inspirational, because sometimes it takes a small action to make a difference to someone. And that is something we all should think about and act like!