The cover and title A Christmas Gift makes you think this book will be a charming and endearing story of Christmas. Not so. But it is well worth reading. A great story. Kathi Macias is a talented writer with great details to the story and the characters.

Julia Bennington is feeling down and depressed. She is widow and her children are leaving the family home to start their own lives. Julia is a teacher and feels she needs something new in her life. She reads of a teaching position in Chiapas, Mexico. She has always to travel. Would this be a new beginning and escape from her current life? Little did she know how going to Mexico would effect her life. One day not really understanding the danger she could face Julia goes outside the compound where she lives and teaches and is kidnapped and held for ransom. How does Pastor Ramon effect her life and her freedom?

This is a story of pain, changes, suspense, danger, love and faith.

I really enjoyed this book and recommend it to everyone.

I received a free copy of this book from bookfun.org for my hones opinion and review.

A Christmas Gift is an exciting, suspenseful, dramatic, and thought-provoking book. It concerns love , life, second-chances, and faith. When a high school teacher of two teenagers is restless and looking for change, she decides to go and teach over break at a compound in southern Mexico. She ends up being kidnapped for ransom. The experiences she has there changes her feelings on life and faith.

I received this book from the Book Club Network in exchange for my honest opinion.

I am not sure what I was expecting when I started reading this book so it is hard to review this book. It was good and I enjoyed it but it didn't hold my interest like some I have read recently.

Julia Bennington is at loose ends - her two children are grown and in college and she is recently widowed. She is an English teacher at the local high school but she has nothing to fulfill her life. When her mother tells her about a local couple who are missionaries in a remote part of Mexico, she thinks that this just might be the thing to help her out of her doldrums.

She teaches in a compound in the jungle just outside of Chiapas, Mexico. She has been warned not to leave the compound alone but one morning she decides that it isn't far to the market and she sets out alone and without telling someone. The local drug lord makes his living by kidnapping unsuspecting tourists and ransoming them. He kidnaps Julia but luckily one of her students sees her in his car.

A rescue comes from an unlikely source and Julia makes a life altering decision.

I was provided a copy of this book for my review from The Book Club Network. I was not paid for a positive review.

The setting of A Christmas Gift by Kathi Macias mostly occurs around the holiday; yet, the story is much more than a story about Christmas or about gift-giving. It is a story of love, second chances of several kinds, and finding a purpose in life. Julia Bennington is a widow of two years with two college-aged children. She has a good job at a high school but feels restless during the summer vacation, even though her children will be at home. A casual remark from her mother about some friends who had committed to the position of directors at a compound in southern Mexico suddenly sparks her interest in a different course for her life. A new challenge and new experiences suddenly fill her with longing for purpose. When her application for the teaching job is approved, she finds great resistance from her parents and children. Yes, some areas of Mayan Mexico present risks, but she feels led to try this very different life. Through this challenging, far less comfortable existence and danger, she finds her true self, her calling, and deepened faith. I highly recommend this novel. I received this book through TBCN in exchange for an honest review.

Let me preface by saying, I am a huge Kathi Macias fan. I have read many of her books and have thoroughly enjoyed each one. She takes the time to research her subjects and then presents them in a very real feeling setting. Although her books are fiction, one could easily see this happening because of the facts and the story lines presented.

A Christmas Gift does not disappoint. Julie Bennington is feeling depressed. Her husband's passing and her children starting their own lives have left her with nothing to focus on. Hearing of a teaching position in a small town in Mexico, Julie feels led to go. Despite objections from her mother and children, Julie heads to Mexico. Once there though, she is introduced to the not so nice side of Mexico and wonders should she have stayed in the USA. Will she ever be able to return? Or will Mexico not only bring danger but something else? For this you will need to read this story!

Kathi Macias is a wonderful author who really takes the time to find the details that some readers look for. Her books do not just show the good in everything but also that our world has a dark side but through it all God will see us through if you have faith. God loves us as we are. You will not be disappointed.

I received this book from bookfun.org in exchange for my honest review.