The Goodbye Gift

by Amanda Brooke

A heartbreaking novel about friendship, love and sacrifice from Richard & Judy Book Club bestseller, Amanda Brooke.

Lucy Cunliffe is waiting for a heart. Just twenty-four, she’s spent most of her life going in and out of hospital and after numerous operations, there’s nothing more the doctors can do, other than wait for the right donor. The day she gets the call is a day of joy and sorrow. Because for Lucy to get a new heart, someone else doesn’t need it any longer…

Julia, Helen and Phoebe are bound by long-standing friendship and mutual support, but each faces her own demons and a tragic accident is about to impact on their lives in a way they couldn’t have foreseen.

As the bonds of friendship are tested, we know one thing: Lucy will get her heart. The question is, who will give the gift of life?

Genres: Fiction, Chick Lit, Contemporary, Romance, Love

433 pages, Kindle Edition

First published August 11, 2016

About the author

Amanda Brooke lives in Liverpool with her teenage daughter, Jessica. When her three-year-old son died from cancer, Amanda was determined that his legacy would be one of inspiration. Yesterday's Sun is inspired by her experiences of motherhood.

Reviews

[Dale Harcombe · Rating 2 out of 5]

Lucy has been waiting for a heart transplant for a long time. Will it ever come? Sadly though, for her to get the new heart she needs someone else has to dies which leaves Lucy with feelings of guilt and sadness mingling with hope. However sick she may be she is determined to go on a holiday with her sister despite their mother’s objections. Julie, Hen and Phoebe have been friends for years. Helen is divorced with an eleven year old daughter Milly. Julia and her husband Paul have been trying unsuccessfully for a baby. Phoebe’s life is very much tied up with that of her grandmother, who has looked after her since her mother died. But her grandmother has dementia. How will they cope as her condition gets worse?
Having read and enjoyed a couple of other books by this author, I was keen to start this one. It started off well and gained my interest. Only a couple of chapters in, is a chapter titled The Accident. From there this story deviates between events that happened four months earlier interspersed with chapter about the accident and its after effects. Strangely the story concentrates primarily on the friendship between Julia, Helen and Phoebe. It is almost like Lucy the one in need of the heart transplant is an afterthought instead of the main character.
The longer the story went on the less I liked Helen, Julia and Phoebe. Although the three are made out to be such close friends and there for each other when needed, the friendship is based on lies, betrayals and deceptions. It made me think I could do without friends like that. I absolutely hated the way Helen referred to her daughter Milly as ’The Millstone.’ Lucy is the most likable character but the reader never sees enough of her. As for the ending, I thought it was a cop out. So, all in all, this was just an okay book that left me disappointed. A shame because the subject of organ donation is such an important one and a story that should have had so much going for it.

[ReadAlongWithSue recovering from a stroke★⋆. ࿐࿔ · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a tearjerker. For sure.

Based around donors.

This story came from the authors own experience regarding her son who sadly didn’t make it.

I can’t imagine the emotions that the author went through to write this.

What I liked were the sides from all characters involved in this, it was so warm hearted yet so tender.

This book may not be for everyone, I can understand that, it’s certainly written so well.

[Suze · Rating 5 out of 5]

Phoebe, Julia and Helen have been friends for a very long time. Phoebe and Helen are the same age and Julia is a little older, so she is the one who's taking care of everyone. Helen is a single mother and Phoebe is still living with their grandmother. Julia is married to Paul, who is a little younger than she is, and they're trying to conceive, but nothing has happened so far. Julia is at the end of her thirties, so they're worried it's too late for them to have children. Fortunately she has her friends to support her. Or has she? Secrets and lies have been existing between the friends for years. The truth can't remain hidden forever, it's bound to come out and when it does it will change the lives of the three friends and Paul forever.

Lucy is waiting for a donor heart. She finally wants to start living. The bad side of getting someone else's heart is that this person needs to die. Lucy knows that a tragedy has to happen before she has a chance to survive. After a horrible accident there might be a heart for Lucy, but whose will it be?

The Goodbye Gift is a beautiful emotional story. I shed quite a few tears while I was reading this book. Amanda Brooke writes about difficult topics with compassion. She knows what she's dealing with and that makes her story feel very real. It's incredibly moving in many different ways. One of the main topics of this book is having children versus not being able to conceive them. Amanda Brooke describes this in a strong and sensitive way, while perfectly capturing the multitude of feelings that are involved, which is quite an achievement.

The friendship between Phoebe, Julia and Helen seems ideal at first. What's more wonderful than having two best friends who will always be there for you? Unfortunately the foundation of their friendship isn't as solid as it might seem. Past decisions are slowly destroying it. It was interesting to see what would happen, but it was also heartbreaking to watch the situation evolve. I kept wishing I could intervene, which kept me on the edge of my seat the entire time I was reading.

The Goodbye Gift is thought-provoking. There are several dilemmas and there's room for the reader to decide how to feel about certain issues and decisions. Is there a right or wrong or are there shades of grey that make certain actions forgivable? Who needs to forgive and who needs to be forgiven? Amanda Brooke has written a fantastic multilayered story. It starts with something sad and it ends in the same way, while hope was my main motivator to keep reading as fast as I could. I flew through the pages, because I wanted to get the exact details of what happened before, during and after the accident. I loved that the reader roughly knows what the ending is going to be, but isn't getting the exact details. Everything about The Goodbye Gift impressed me, it's a brilliant gripping story that will stay with me for a long time.

[Lynda Kelly · Rating 4 out of 5]

This sounded so interesting that I paid for an unknown-to-me-author, which is a rare occurrence. It started really well and ended well but in-between I got a little bored with it and wasn't in any great rush to get back into it, which was a pity. However, her newest book The Affair looks interesting so I will give her another go.
The story was good but there are a lot of mistakes that probably mainly contributed to my getting so jaded by it. That is always so disappointing, when publishers sling stuff out there without ensuring (or seemingly, caring) whether they're full of errors or not. Just slapdash and bone idle of 'em as far as I'm concerned, let alone disrespectful to the reader.
I loved the dedication at the start-it is very sweet, especially when the whole back-story was explained more fully in the acknowledgements at the end. My version has a nice, eye-catching cover as well.
However, this is a story set here and we're plagued by bloody American spellings-agonizing (indeed !!), realized, prioritized, etc....then this sentence was peculiar wording, "Eighty-six-year-old Theresa wasn't exactly nimble and if Phoebe didn't know better, she had been lurking"...Then they kept "shortening" Phoebe's name to Phoebes which is wrong. It should read Phoebs if they're going to call her that, I'd imagine. We had repeated apostrophe errors, especially each time she wrote ladies and not ladies' and quite a few sentences missed their ending speechmarks, she writes balling not bawling, peaked not peeked and though not through, which are true schoolboy errors !!
My favourite character was Paul, I thought he was just delightful, though none of the characters were immune from telling some proper howling lies, which doesn't endear you to many of them.
She did write a very poignant sentence I liked a great deal: "The people who donate organs don't die so that someone else can live: they die because of what happened to them." I didn't guess who gave the ultimate gift at the end but I thought it very touching that Paul DID become Lucy's running partner as things turned out-that was sweet. Though I'd have liked to have seen an epilogue of sorts to see how things went and whether Lucy learned it was him that saved her.
I'll read another by her but if it's presented as poorly as this one it will be the last.

[Linda Mullins · Rating 2 out of 5]

So so

Much too lengthy. Too much time spent on the friends story and not enough about the heart transplant victim. Tiresome and contrived

[Cindy Lewis · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a great book.

I loved the theme and how it wove two stories together - with Lucy and her need to live her life with needing a heart transplant; and the three best friends and how their friendship developed between them; and then the tragic accident and how that imploded onto everyone's lives.

The characters were very realistic and I felt I could empathise with them all over their various highs and lows.

Heart breaking but life goes on.

[Steph · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's gone 1am and I've just finished this book,I was unable to put it down once id started.
Three best friends,Helen, Phoebe and Julia all have their own problems and dramas of family life,all very different women but ultimately best friends who are always there for one another.
From the beginning I never much liked Phoebe and as the story developed I grew to hate her even more,such a selfish,self-centred,hateful bitch! She was truly a pathetic creature who I couldn't find an ounce of sympathy for,she made me loath her.

Julia I liked in the beginning but at times I disliked her,her and her husband Paul were desperate to have a baby but it just wasn't happening and yes you can sympathise but she made her friends feel so awkward as if they couldn't even mention babies around her or for Helen who couldn't even moan about her own daughter for the ridicule she would get from Julia. She was rather self-centred too most of the time.

I liked Helen the whole way through,a single mum to her 11 year old daughter Milly and a nurse too. She was very real and honest,unlike the other two.

I liked the way the story would go back in time and then come back to the accident and how Lucy was intertwined with them all.
In a way it was kind of predictable who would die,no I didn't guess it at first but I had worked it out. After all that I didn't like it at all and the way the ending unfolded with who was left,apart from the death of their loved one it was all wrapped up too neatly and all was forgiven.

But I really did enjoy this book and I will definitely look up some more by this author :-)

[Claire Thake · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ever since I read Amanda's book Another Way to Fall, I have needed every book of hers and once again this one doesn't disappoint. In fact, I think this may well be my favourite book of Amanda's so far.

The story follows three best friends - Julia, Helen, and Phoebe. All live different lives, different problems, and all hiding different secrets.

This book kept me gripped the entire way through, and many, many times I believed that I knew the outcome, only for the story to take an entirely different direction. My only complaint Is that I wish there had been a view into the future to see how things had turned out for the three friends and Lucy and her family.

I really cannot recommend this book enough, and once again Amanda has delivered an amazing and gripping read, and I cannot wait to see what she has in store for her readers next!

[Kathy Sandlin · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a good book. It had an interesting set of flawed characters that have a long history together of helping each other but also hurting each other. Sometimes it was known they were hurting somebody else and sometimes it was done with the best intentions. The book flip flopped between post accident and four months in the past. You know right away that there was a terrible accident but and you find out a little bit more of the back story in between each of the accident chapters. The back story chapters dragged on for a little bit for me but that was because I was anxious to find out what happened in the accident. This book also makes it very clear the importance of organ donation which I know was near and dear to the author’s heart.

[Nessa · Rating 4 out of 5]

I listened to this on audio book and I lovedevery second of it. It was a truly beautiful heartfelt and emotional read. I loved getting to know each of the characters and discovering their individual stories/background.

There were a few emotional moments throughout and there was one bit at the end that bought tears to my eyes.

Amanda Brooke was a new author to be but I'm very much looking forward to reading/listening to her other books.

[Cass Glaves · Rating 3 out of 5]

hmmmmm yeah it was OK. a bit long winded tbh, but ok as a "holiday read".

[Tracey · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not the read I thought it was going to be. The story felt disjointed in the way it was told.

[Ceri · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book was passed to me from my auntie who enjoyed it.
I read this quickly as it was an easy read and I wanted to know what would happen - it was fairly predictable with a few plot twists. It centred around an important subject, organ donation, and unfortunately the organ recipient was not the focus of the book. Instead, the author chose to concentrate on 3 friends who became increasingly unlikable.
Phoebe, Julia & Helen were all pretty awful in different ways - wish the author had written more from Lucy’s perspective.
This book was long and bits were repetitive - ending felt rushed. Not the best read!

[Natalia Bethencourt · Rating 3 out of 5]

Comencé este libro que tenía por casa desde que me lo regalasen hace unos años con la idea de que fuese el típico libro de club de lectura de señoras, y no me equivoqué. Aún así ha sido interesante como lectura ligera, una historia no demasiado enrevesada pero emocionalmente profunda.

[Bookread2day · Rating 5 out of 5]

Once again Amanda Brooke has written another fantastic story. Three friends and one tragic accident. Julia and Paul's relationship had been under constant strain. Julia is scared that she won't be able to have a baby and that Paul her husband will leave her. She had been having so much trouble trying to conceive. There had been an accident. Paul is put on a life support machine. Julia and Paul did talk about Organ donation but he didn't want to donate his organs. Lucy has been desperate for a new heart, will she get a new heart?. The characters in this story all have a different approach about organ donation. What I particularly liked about this story is that friends and relationships hide many secrets but will they come bubbling to the surface? Amanda Brooke got part the idea for this story as in search for a bone marrow donor for her son who very sadly lost his fight. Amanda Brooke is a clever writer who always puts her character through emotional issues.

[Niki · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good book, very enjoyable with a bittersweet ending.

Emotional subjects make you want to keep reading, and the story flips between the current timeline and after the event to keep it an interesting and gripping read.

As a first time reader of this author I would definitely read more by Amanda Brooke.

Thanks to goodreads and Harper for providing the book in exchange for an honest review.

[Ells · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not my kind of story, it was almost predicatable. The best thing about it was the moral of the story, which is not to take life for granted. I like the way the book is written - the chapters flick between present and the future with the storyline catching up towards the end.

[Sue · Rating 1 out of 5]

This started off with promise, but went rapidly down hill. I felt nothing for the main characters, the story was long winded and didn't seem to connect to the synopsis. Lucy who needed the heart seemed rough be an extra. I ended up skipping through pages just to get to the end.

[Adriana S.]

Phoebe, Julia e Helen são amigas há muito tempo. Phoebe e Helen têm a mesma idade e Julia é um pouco mais velha, 40 anos. Helen é mãe solteira e vive o dilema de conquistar a filha que quer morar com o pai e o irmão recém-nascido. Phoebe ainda mora com a avó (senil). Julia é casada com Paul, estão tentando engravidar. Lucy está esperando por um doador de coração. Ela sabe que uma tragédia precisa acontecer a uma pessoa para que ela tenha chance de sobreviver. Depois de um acidente horrível, há um coração para Lucy, mas será de Phoebe, Julia, Helen ou Paul? O livro é narrado entre o presente (houve um acidente e Phoebe e Julia estão sem se falar, todas em situação complicada em um hospital) e passado - alguns meses antes. E aí a gente se pergunta quem vai morrer e por que estão sem se falar??? Phoebe traiu Julia com Paul e esta descobre bem quando ele as busca na estação de trem, para ela contar que finalmente está grávida. Há um climão no carro e um acidente em um sinal vermelho. É revelado também que Phoebe e Paul já tiveram um caso no passado e Julia e Helen interferiram para eles se separarem, pois achavam que não teria futuro e que ela devia estudar para ser artista (oi???), mas não sabiam que Phoebe estava grávida e que fez um aborto após a separação com Paul. Achei esse plot bem nada a ver. Depois do término, um tempo se passou e Julia e ele se reencontram, Phoebe autoriza o namoro. No presente, quando ele a ensina a dirigir, ocorre a traição. No hospital Julia autoriza a doação de órgãos do marido e a enfermeira percebe que a amizade delas ficará mais forte com o nascimento do bebê (como ele não morreu no acidente, eu não sei, visto que seria uma gravidez de risco pela idade da mãe). Enfim... um livro ok.

[Jady · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book caught my attention at the start , it began with Julia married to Paul 5 years her junior, then introduced her 2 main friends both 10 years younger Helen and Phoebe. Julia is desperate to conceive and basically the whole book is about her and her needs. Paul seems to just fall in with her every whim. The book goes from present to 4 months previously, constantly. She's quite opinionated and rules the roost, always dissecting comments and actions. There's a hint of something big that happened 4 months earlier. Everyone is hiding secrets whilst sympathising with Julia, to be honest most people would have lost their tempers with her. But she looked after the 2 girls as children so this makes them loyal . Every time Julia is not pregnant she sends a message to her friends for an emergency meeting at a restaurant to discuss yet again why not
Lucy is a young woman who needs a heart transplant who wants to get on with her life, joins a gym and plans a holiday.
I hoped the story would pick up but even when the other characters were involved it still reverted to Julia, I read to the end desperate to finish , not because I was enjoying it , but so I could return it.

[Tina O'reilly · Rating 4 out of 5]

You know from quite early on that the 'gift' will be someone rather than something, you just need to read it to find out whom. I loved the strong friendship of the three women, but did wonder if there being three meant there could come a division between them along the way (two's company, three's a crowd?). The role of one of their husband's was good, loving one dearly but suffering the other two as three came as a 'package' it seemed. The couple's personal struggle was quite poignant. The side story of the young girl suffering with poor health was intertwined well, it needed to be there but did not interfere with the main storyline - cleverly put in by the author. It was my first read by Amanda Brooke - won't be my last. I might recommend it to lover's of Jodi Picoult, though this isn't as involved it reminded me of her general writing genre.

[Patchwork · Rating 1 out of 5]

I have absolutely no idea how this book has such a high average rating. I did not like this at all. The change of focus from one set of characters to another set makes no sense to me. I connected with none of the characters, did not care at all what happened to them and by extension, didn't care what happened in the book. I hated the strange time jumps backwards and forwards that were only sometimes pointed out. None of the characters had their own distinct voice either, honestly I could barely differentiate whose story line was whose.

It tried to focus on too many plot points from too many characters and was just poorly done. Not for me.

[NotAnotherEmptySkull · Rating 3 out of 5]

☆3.25 Stars☆

NOTES & THOUGHTS
• Emotional.
• Well written.
• Storyline develops well.
• The book felt a little too long.
• Themes of friendship, love, loss and betrayal.
• Past & present entwine - it helps to develop the storyline.
• The multi-character point of view - it adds to the storyline development.

I LOVED
• The well-developed storyline.
• That the storyline was in depth.
• The ending - it provided shock, an emotional response and a sensitive finish.

I DIDN'T LOVE
• That some parts of the book felt quite repetitive.
• That it felt as though the book went on a little too long.
• That there wasn't much focus on the transplant patient.

[Lucy McLaurin · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a great book.

I loved the theme and how it wove two stories together - with Lucy and her need to live her life with needing a heart transplant; and the three best friends and how their friendship developed between them; and then the tragic accident and how that imploded onto every0ne's lives.

The characters were very realistic and I felt I could empathise with them all over their various highs and lows.

Super story-line that kept me turning the pages to finish as soon as I could to discover how their lives went.

[Amy Mager · Rating 3 out of 5]

Quite a good read. Personally I felt it lacked in setting and description, it rarely painted a picture. It was very much dominated by speech by characters, leaving it a tad 2D. About two thirds of the way through I was thought the ending was going to be so predictable and I hate convenient endings, however I was very pleasantly surprised at the twists and turns and in the end. I thought that the moral of the story won out eventually: Donate your organs and always be grateful for being alive.

[Sarah Gale · Rating 3 out of 5]

This story flits from the past and present and involves two sets of characters. Not a lot actually happens in terms of events until the very end, it’s more about the past behaviour of the characters and their current stage of life which is mentioned. It felt very repetitive at times, one of the main characters Julia seemed to have the same narrative written about her over and over, which I found annoying and frustrating at times. She was also very self indulgent, I took an instant dislike to her. The ending was good and I didn’t guess the character who it involved. Good book, but repetitive dialogue.

[Helen D Nicastro · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great Story

Enjoyed reading about three friends who loved each other. The relationships they had we're truly
remarkable. I had been privileged to have shared a similar friendship in my life with two special
women who loved each other unconditionally for over 40 years. One friend died in 2005 but I
still have the other friend. I thank God for putting us together. Friendship is precious.

[Sam Merrett-Williams · Rating 4 out of 5]

Although it took me a little while to get into this book, I still think it deserves 4 stars.
The 2nd half of the book was waaaaay better than the 1st half
I actually found the 1st half abit slow, repetitive & slightly boring (I almost gave up). However, the 2nd half more than made up for it & I'm glad I persevered.
Although I'd guessed the main outcome of the book fairly early on (I just seem to have a knack of working book plot twists out), it didn't spoil it.

[Sheila Penwell · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was the first of this author that I have read. I thought the book was very good, but sometimes I have a hard time reading books where chapters switch from past to present. The story of 3 very close friends and their relationship was very good. The story which has to go back to the past to show the present was presented well. It took me a while to read it but did really enjoy it.

[Emily · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved this book! It's not normally what I would go for but right from the start it had me hooked.
Great twists and loved how it all ended up being linked together. Couple of emotional teary moments but all added to the great story.
Would love to read more from this author