The Greatest Gift

A Heart Of Time by Shari J Ryan is a beautiful contemporary love story about a love that never dies. It is the first book in The Heart Series.

The book is a study in grief. “It’s [grief] like shrapnel in a wound… the pain will forever be embedded.” Grief is a pain that never goes away. It may diminish at times but then returns, twisting like a knife. Grief has no set formula or time. It is what it is. It lasts as long as it lasts.

There is the theme of organ donation. There feels like there is life after death as there feels like a connection beyond the grave as part of the person you loved is in another.

The greatest gift of all is the gift of life. There is a beautiful father-daughter bond within the novel. A father is not the same as a mother but the father goes the extra mile to make sure his daughter does not miss out. The daughter is wise beyond her five years. She senses great sadness, responding with love and wise words.

Some secrets hurt. Others are kept to prevent hurt.

There is survivor’s guilt. We feel guilty because we lived. We feel guilty when we begin to smile and to live again but it does not mean that we have forgotten our loved one.

A Heart Of Time is about learning to live again. It reveals a path through the mists of grief even though the loss still hurts.

Shari J Ryan has created marvellous characters that lodged in my heart. Both the love and the grief were palpable. A very beautiful story.

A word of caution: there is language some readers may not like. There is also a ‘bedroom’ scene with far too much detail for me so I skipped over it. It did not detract from my overall enjoyment of the story.

JULIA WILSON