What do you think?
Rate this book
The Gift
Emery travels through the dark dimension guided by dark shadows. She drops into a black hole and plummets into a desolate land that she believes is thousands of years in the past. She has to rely on her instincts to survive and her unwavering spirit to endure the harsh conditions.
A tribal chief’s daughter, Visla, finds her after she ingests poisonous berries and saves her life. Their friendship blossoms as they discover they share similar traits and both mourn the loss of their mothers.
Emery learns of the existence of the “bad people” whose description matches that of her mother. She sets out on a mission to find them. Visla leaves the tribe after learning her father held secrets from her. She joins Emery in her quest, which also becomes hers. But the “bad people” find them first, imprison Emery, and threaten to change Visla into a “superior” being against her will.
Emery escapes her prison using her powers and finds herself in a bizarre underground city with advanced technology outpacing the Stone Age. In her quest to find Visla, she befriends two beings whose humanity she questions. A brother and sister help her for reasons they do not fully understand. Emery’s presence cast doubts on their lives. They begin to suspect it is imposed on them by powerful “superior” beings. Looming over their quest to find Visla is the fear of change inflicted on those who rebel.
Captured again by the enigmatic “bad people”, Emery finds unexpected help from an unfathomable being whose identity further deepens the mystery surrounding her.
In the strange gray city, she stumbles on an artifact that shatters her understanding of the world around her and deepens the mystery further, implicating her mother in humanity’s most atrocious acts performed in the name of progress and survival. To find the answers, she forgoes the safety of the world on the surface and dives back into the underground, discovering more secrets and meeting the Masters—the superior beings with unmatched cruelty and depravity.
She barely escapes with her life, with even more questions, but with a budding understanding of what she has to do to get the answers and continue with her mission. If she’s going to save humanity, she’ll have to make choices that weigh losing what is most precious to her against the world’s survival.
A tribal chief’s daughter, Visla, finds her after she ingests poisonous berries and saves her life. Their friendship blossoms as they discover they share similar traits and both mourn the loss of their mothers.
Emery learns of the existence of the “bad people” whose description matches that of her mother. She sets out on a mission to find them. Visla leaves the tribe after learning her father held secrets from her. She joins Emery in her quest, which also becomes hers. But the “bad people” find them first, imprison Emery, and threaten to change Visla into a “superior” being against her will.
Emery escapes her prison using her powers and finds herself in a bizarre underground city with advanced technology outpacing the Stone Age. In her quest to find Visla, she befriends two beings whose humanity she questions. A brother and sister help her for reasons they do not fully understand. Emery’s presence cast doubts on their lives. They begin to suspect it is imposed on them by powerful “superior” beings. Looming over their quest to find Visla is the fear of change inflicted on those who rebel.
Captured again by the enigmatic “bad people”, Emery finds unexpected help from an unfathomable being whose identity further deepens the mystery surrounding her.
In the strange gray city, she stumbles on an artifact that shatters her understanding of the world around her and deepens the mystery further, implicating her mother in humanity’s most atrocious acts performed in the name of progress and survival. To find the answers, she forgoes the safety of the world on the surface and dives back into the underground, discovering more secrets and meeting the Masters—the superior beings with unmatched cruelty and depravity.
She barely escapes with her life, with even more questions, but with a budding understanding of what she has to do to get the answers and continue with her mission. If she’s going to save humanity, she’ll have to make choices that weigh losing what is most precious to her against the world’s survival.
287 pages, Paperback
Published August 13, 2025
3 people are currently reading
700 people want to read
About the author
Eva Barber
5 books20 followersEva Barber is the author of Unborn, the first book in the Dark World series, a speculative fiction adventure that she began writing while working as a biologist and environmentalist. Eva’s artistic background contributes to her cinematic writing style, while her background in science grounds her fantastic stories in reality. Eva writes books about science that blend myth, family drama, and what it means to belong and sacrifice.
Her stories and characters are inspired in part by the places she’s visited and lived in Europe, but she calls the evergreen Pacific Northwest her home now. When she’s not writing or painting, or playing with dirt, she enjoys camping and hiking with her husband and their two spoiled mutts.
evalidiabarber.com
Her stories and characters are inspired in part by the places she’s visited and lived in Europe, but she calls the evergreen Pacific Northwest her home now. When she’s not writing or painting, or playing with dirt, she enjoys camping and hiking with her husband and their two spoiled mutts.
evalidiabarber.com
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
September 26, 2025
The Gift follows Emery, a young woman pulled into a strange dimension where voices, shadows, and visions drag her into a fate she never asked for. The novel is about her journey to rescue her mother, uncover hidden truths about her powers, and navigate an ancient and perilous world that teeters between myth and science. There are black holes that bend time, creatures that lurk in slithering shadows, and tribes that live by instinct and survival. But underneath the cosmic spectacle, it is really about one woman’s fight to hold on to family, identity, and purpose in a reality that constantly shifts beneath her feet.
The writing surprised me. It has a dreamlike quality in places, flowing almost like waves, then suddenly crashing into moments of raw grit and pain. The descriptions of the void, of light turning into memory, of bodies disintegrating and reforming, made me pause and reread because they were so vivid. But then the author would drop Emery into the dirt, into hunger and thirst, into stumbling mistakes, and it grounded everything. That combination kept me engaged. Sometimes the prose was a little heavy, but the emotional weight pulled me through. I found myself caring about Emery’s stubbornness, her doubts, her messy humanity, even as she was tasked with saving more than just herself.
What really stayed with me was the emotional pull of Emery’s relationships, especially her bond with Visla. Their friendship felt tender and real, the kind of connection that lights up even the darkest setting. I loved how their language lessons became a bridge between two worlds. I felt warmth reading their moments together, and sadness knowing Emery’s destiny might tear them apart. Emery’s constant second-guessing sometimes slowed the story, and I wished she trusted herself more. But then again, maybe that’s what made her believable. She wasn’t some perfect heroine. She was clumsy, scared, and hopeful, and that made me root for her all the more.
I felt like I’d been on a strange and exhausting journey right alongside Emery. The Gift is not just for fans of science fiction or fantasy. It’s for readers who want to feel the clash of fear and hope, who enjoy sci-fi stories where survival is as important as destiny, and where the heart matters as much as the universe. I would recommend it to anyone who likes their adventure raw and relatable, layered with both cosmic wonder and everyday struggle.
The writing surprised me. It has a dreamlike quality in places, flowing almost like waves, then suddenly crashing into moments of raw grit and pain. The descriptions of the void, of light turning into memory, of bodies disintegrating and reforming, made me pause and reread because they were so vivid. But then the author would drop Emery into the dirt, into hunger and thirst, into stumbling mistakes, and it grounded everything. That combination kept me engaged. Sometimes the prose was a little heavy, but the emotional weight pulled me through. I found myself caring about Emery’s stubbornness, her doubts, her messy humanity, even as she was tasked with saving more than just herself.
What really stayed with me was the emotional pull of Emery’s relationships, especially her bond with Visla. Their friendship felt tender and real, the kind of connection that lights up even the darkest setting. I loved how their language lessons became a bridge between two worlds. I felt warmth reading their moments together, and sadness knowing Emery’s destiny might tear them apart. Emery’s constant second-guessing sometimes slowed the story, and I wished she trusted herself more. But then again, maybe that’s what made her believable. She wasn’t some perfect heroine. She was clumsy, scared, and hopeful, and that made me root for her all the more.
I felt like I’d been on a strange and exhausting journey right alongside Emery. The Gift is not just for fans of science fiction or fantasy. It’s for readers who want to feel the clash of fear and hope, who enjoy sci-fi stories where survival is as important as destiny, and where the heart matters as much as the universe. I would recommend it to anyone who likes their adventure raw and relatable, layered with both cosmic wonder and everyday struggle.
November 23, 2025
The Gift is one of those novels that blurs the boundaries between genres — part science fiction, part spiritual odyssey, and part love story. It opens in the afterlife, in a space both beautiful and terrifying, where Emery is pulled through darkness, light, and time itself. What begins as a quest to find her mother quickly expands into something larger — a story about creation, destiny, and the cost of saving the world. Barber writes with a cinematic style, full of color and motion, yet always anchored in emotion. Every scene feels vivid and alive, from the vast black hole to the primitive landscapes Emery explores.
What struck me most was how personal this story feels, even when it’s operating on a cosmic scale. Emery isn’t a detached hero — she’s grieving, flawed, often angry, and full of questions. Her voice feels real. You can feel her exhaustion, her stubbornness, her wonder. The philosophical ideas about time, destiny, and rebirth work because they’re filtered through her very human fear and longing. The story moves like a dream, but it’s grounded by her voice and her will to survive.
Barber also has a gift for worldbuilding. The scenes through the black hole — the eerie blue lights, the strange worlds, the silvery beings — read like visual art. And when Emery finally lands in a prehistoric world and meets the gentle, curious Visla, the novel shifts tone completely. What was cosmic becomes intimate. Their friendship becomes the emotional center of the book, a bridge between two eras and two souls. Through Visla, the story breathes; it becomes about connection, compassion, and the timelessness of human love.
The Gift asks big questions: What would you sacrifice to save others? Can destiny and free will coexist? And what if the greatest power you carry is love itself? It’s a story that balances science and spirit, mythology and physics, light and shadow. It’s deeply imaginative but never loses its heart. I finished it feeling both small and infinite — which is exactly what a story about the universe should make you feel.
You can find my full review here: https://likelystory.blog/2025/11/22/r...
What struck me most was how personal this story feels, even when it’s operating on a cosmic scale. Emery isn’t a detached hero — she’s grieving, flawed, often angry, and full of questions. Her voice feels real. You can feel her exhaustion, her stubbornness, her wonder. The philosophical ideas about time, destiny, and rebirth work because they’re filtered through her very human fear and longing. The story moves like a dream, but it’s grounded by her voice and her will to survive.
Barber also has a gift for worldbuilding. The scenes through the black hole — the eerie blue lights, the strange worlds, the silvery beings — read like visual art. And when Emery finally lands in a prehistoric world and meets the gentle, curious Visla, the novel shifts tone completely. What was cosmic becomes intimate. Their friendship becomes the emotional center of the book, a bridge between two eras and two souls. Through Visla, the story breathes; it becomes about connection, compassion, and the timelessness of human love.
The Gift asks big questions: What would you sacrifice to save others? Can destiny and free will coexist? And what if the greatest power you carry is love itself? It’s a story that balances science and spirit, mythology and physics, light and shadow. It’s deeply imaginative but never loses its heart. I finished it feeling both small and infinite — which is exactly what a story about the universe should make you feel.
You can find my full review here: https://likelystory.blog/2025/11/22/r...
October 18, 2025
I won this book and am looking forward to reading it.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews