The Gift

by Joseph D'Aquila

“The devil is a trickster. He’s the great deceiver.” Frank and Rose Divella, a first-generation, Italo-Canadian couple, seem to have it the big house in the ‘burbs’, money in the bank and a loving, supportive parents. Theirs is the immigrant dream come true except for one missing children. Believing that ‘the evil eye’ is responsible, Rose visits a mysterious old woman who is known to have supernatural powers. After a bizarre and terrifying visit, Rose returns home, shaken. But her distress soon turns to joy a few weeks later when she finds out that she is pregnant, a pregnancy which results in the birth of a son, Johnny who is born with the ‘gift’ of healing. At first, Johnny’s parents endeavour to keep their son’s power a secret but eventually succumb to the temptation of money when they allow Johnny to ‘heal’ Robbie Warner, the dying ten-year-old son of an enormously wealthy entrepreneur. One night, in the same villa in which Mary Shelley conceived Frankenstein, Johnny Divella ‘re-animates’ Robbie Warner. Robbie Warner’s recovery is nothing short of miraculous and it is here where the story’s narrative shifts dramatically. Robert Warner Jr. grows into adulthood, takes charge of his father’s pharmaceutical empire and uses his wealth and fame to catapult himself into the White House. What follows is an incredibly progressive political agenda that transforms the American political landscape in a manner not seen since the days of Franklin Roosevelt. While Warner’s popularity reaches historical heights and leads to a second term of office, John Divella, one of Warner’s most-trusted political advisors from the start, begins to see that all is not what it seems. Something is horribly wrong. The nation is heading towards a precipice and it’s not what you might think. The Gift is a complex, nuanced story which will challenge the reader’s assumptions about good and evil; right and wrong. It will leave you emotionally spent and uncertain.

402 pages, Kindle Edition

Published August 31, 2020