The Gift

It has been thirty years since I last read this book, but it was just as much fun as I remembered. The story opens with a unique twist - King George III facilitates a marriage between two feuding families to end the conflict. The prize is a fortune in cash and a piece of disputed land when the marriage is consummated, and an heir is born. The groom is Nathan, Marquess of St. James, and the bride is Lady Sara Winchester. The twist - Nathan is fourteen and Sara is four. Obviously, consummation will have to wait.

Fourteen years later, Nathan is ready to bite the bullet and claim his bride. He's not enthusiastic about it but needs the cash to help establish the shipping company he and his friend Colin formed. There's a fun scene between him show more and Colin as they discuss Nathan's plan to retrieve his bride. Meanwhile, Sara is impatiently waiting for Nathan to come for her. Her life with her family has been miserable, and now she needs help to rescue her aunt. Letters to Nathan have gone unanswered, so she takes matters into her own hands.

Sara is something of a ditz. She is typical of the young ladies of the period - overprotected, undereducated, and utterly naïve about the real world. The opening scene of her planned rescue shows her oblivious to the danger around her. I laughed out loud as I watched her actions, completely understanding Nathan's disbelief as he followed her. This is just the beginning. I liked Nathan's protectiveness as he followed her, rescued her, and got her aboard his ship. The shipboard scenes with Sara were frequently hilarious as she tried to win over the crew, whom she called her staff, with often disastrous results.

Watching this pair's relationship develop had me laughing out loud throughout the book. Nathan, a man of his time, is arrogant, certain of his place in the world, and convinced that he knows best. He has no intention of falling in love, as women are not to be trusted. Sara, on the other hand, is bluntly honest in expressing her thoughts and feelings. She tells Nathan she is everything he could possibly want in a wife. She lets him know when she is angry or disappointed in him. She also tells him that she loves him and gets frustrated when he doesn't reciprocate. I enjoyed watching Sara wriggle her way into his heart with him all the way. His 'aha' moment was great, and I loved watching him try to fix his mistakes. His method of doing so was a fantastic ending to the book.

There is also tension because of the underhanded actions of Sara's father and uncle. Nathan's protectiveness toward Sara was needed to counteract their actions. Things became complicated when a lie ran up against Nathan's distrust of women, which caused him to make a stupid mistake. Sara's love for Nathan never faltered, though she questioned her belief about his feelings for her. There's a terrific scene where her Nathan-instilled confidence enabled her to come out on top of a confrontation with her uncle. I laughed out loud at the men's reactions. The resolution of that problem was excellent. show less

I’ve been a fan of Julie Garwood now for over twenty-five years. She came recommended to me by my mother-in-law, who is also a romance fan, and she was one of the first mainstream historical romance authors I tried. I remember reading The Gift way back when I was discovering her work. It was probably one of the first Garwood books I tried, but all I really remembered about it is that I’d liked it and that there was some high-seas adventure in it. At the time I first read it, though, I didn’t realize it was the third book of a series, so I only more recently read the first two. The Gift, however, is my favorite of the Crown’s Spies series so far and quite possibly my favorite of this author’s books that I’ve read at this show more point, too. It’s about Nathan St. James and Sara Winchester, who were married as children, a command that was handed down by King George III, himself, as a way to bring peace between their families who’ve been at odds since the medieval era. Nathan was only fourteen at the time, and Sara was a mere four years old. Their wedding is shown in the prologue and their first meeting is adorably sweet with little Sara placing her full trust in Nathan even then. Since then, they’ve lived separate lives, but Sara has dreamed of the day that Nathan will come to whisk her away. Needing the money that fulfilling the marriage contract will eventually bring him, Nathan finally shows up fourteen years later, intending to collect his bride and do just that, but with no designs on falling in love. However, Sara confounds him at every turn with her sweet, generous spirit and annoys the hell out of him when she brings one calamity after another upon his ship. But soon, he can no longer imagine his life without her, even though the word “love” isn’t exactly in his vocabulary. This book was a delightful reread that turned out to be equal parts sweet, sexy, and LOL funny.

Sara is a naive, idealistic dreamer who usually has her head in the clouds. She’s also a hopeless romantic who has built up the husband she hasn’t seen since their wedding day into the perfect fairy tale prince. When her uncle and his brothers try to have her beloved Aunt Nora, who is the black sheep of the family for marrying far beneath her station, committed to an asylum in order to steal her money, Sara writes, asking for Nathan’s help. What she doesn’t know, though, is that her missives went astray, so when he doesn’t come, she decides to take matters into her own hands. Sneaking out late at night, she walks the few blocks to her uncle’s town house where she believes Nora is being held captive and frees her, but little does she know that her husband coincidentally showed up anyway and protected her all along the way. When she goes to a tavern to confront her uncle and get Nora’s wedding ring back, then she finally meets her huge, handsome spouse, who once again saves her and takes her aboard his ship. At first, she’s a little afraid of him, but she gradually comes to realize that he’d never hurt her even though he frequently bellows at her for the wacky things that she does. Sara is one of the sweetest, most innocent and guileless heroines I believe I’ve ever read. She’s also a walking calamity who nearly destroys Nathan’s ship on more than one occasion, even driving his crew to wear garlic to ward off the bad luck she brings. But underneath it all, she has a genuinely good heart. She comes to deeply love and have absolute trust in Nathan pretty quickly, and once she does, she’s loyal to a fault, defending him even when he irritates her. She’s quite protective of those she loves and that comes to include Nathan. She’s extremely shy on their “wedding night,” but once sexually awakened, she becomes a very responsive lover and is quite demonstrative of her love in more ways than one.

Nathan lost his parents at a young age and became responsible for his younger sister, Jade, who found her HEA in the previous book, Guardian Angel. Although a marquess, he’s spent most of the intervening years since marrying Sara as a pirate and spy for the crown. With the bounty on his pirate persona growing larger by the day, he decides it’s time to go straight and start a legitimate shipping company with his best friend, Colin. In order to build it up, though, he needs more money, but he lost much of what he owned when both of his homes fell victim to arson. The marriage contract includes a gift of land and gold after Nathan has spent one year living as husband and wife with Sara and producing an heir, so he decides to finally go claim her. Most of the Winchester women are plain and plump, and the clan in general are pretty ill-tempered, so he doesn’t expect much, leaving him pleasantly surprised to discover that Sara is quite comely and pretty sweet-tempered, if a bit stubborn. Even though she seems to cause one catastrophe after another that tries his patience, he knows that she isn’t doing it deliberately, and her frequent tears and heartfelt apologies make it impossible for him to stay mad at her for long. Although he doesn’t recognize his emotions as love, the kind and gentle way he always treats her and his growing inability to imagine life without her make his feelings abundantly clear even if it takes him a while to admit it both to himself and to her. Even though Nathan can play the growly alpha, he never annoyed me. I loved him to pieces and found him nearly as amusing as Sara.

I can hardly express how much fun I had rereading The Gift. Even though I had vague recollections of enjoying it before, this revisit exceeded my expectations. I’m very particular about rom-coms, often finding them too shallow or not as humorous as they’re supposed to be, but this one tickled my funny bone just right. I think I spent the entire time I read it with a goofy grin on my face, if not outright laughing. It’s a little slap-sticky, but it totally worked for me. I can’t recall when I’ve read a more hilarious book. Yet, interspersed with all the fun and games was a sweet, tender love story that gave me all the feels that I expect in a romance. It was completely apparent from their adorable first meeting in the prologue that these two were star-crossed loves meant for each other. I love Sara’s complete faith and trust in Nathan even when he stubbornly refuses to tell her he loves her. Nathan may be a little rough around the edges, but he has a good heart, expressing his love in his own sweet way, through his kindness, gentleness, and protectiveness. I enjoyed the secondary romance between Nora and Matthew, one of Nathan’s seamen. There were plenty of other supporting characters to liven things up as well, including Caine and Jade (Guardian Angel) and Colin, who will become the hero of the next book, Castles. This series may have gotten off to a slow start for me, but after this charming and entertaining entry, I’m now looking forward to finishing it off soon, while hoping that Colin’s story will be equally as diverting as this one was. show less

Trigger warning: It's not shown, but we do know that one of the woman in this book is being physically abused.

Wow. This one and the next ended up being my favorite out of this series. By the third book Garwood has gotten her groove. I absolutely loved the characters of Sara and Nathan. We also get callbacks and scenes with prior characters Jade and Caine as well as mention of [spoiler] Colin. Who knew a book that starts with a child bride ceremony (seriously you guys) would end up showing us two characters you can't help root for.

"The Gift" follows Nathan, who is the Marquess of St. James. Nathan when he was a teen married Sara Winchester (she was 4) due to some ongoing mess between the two families. The then King George insisted on show more the marriage because he thought this would make them all get along (spoilers...it did not). Fourteen years later, Nathan is ready to "claim" his wife. The book follows as the two of them get to know each other, and Sara realizes (slowly) how horrible her family is and what she is willing to do, to make sure Nathan's family's scandal is not revealed.

I absolutely loved Nathan. Seriously. The whole book was him being grumpy as hell and saying "Dammit Sara" to the point that when it's pointed out it's an endearment in a funny scene was hilarious.

Sara though I can see why she bugged a lot of readers. She is naïve as anything. She expects Nathan to "save her" and keeps doing things at times that will drive you up the wall. But by the end, I really did like her transformation into a heroine that was not going to just sit back and let her family take something away from her that she wants.

The writing in this one was gold and funny as hell. Seriously, the beginning showing the wedding with "Mad" King George is one for the books. Also there are so many other hilarious scenes I just fell out. Towards the end when Nathan is looking all over London for Sara and runs into his sister's home (Jade) and runs about and about was just awesome. And let's not forget the fight during the waltz. I am really amazed no one has thought to bring this series to life via Netflix or some other streamer. It would be fantastic IMHO.

No issues with the flow in this one, I was honestly stunned how fast this book flew by compared to books # 1 and #2 in the series.

The ending was great.

I also read this for Cannonball Read 14 Book Bingo. This fits the following bingo circle:

Scandal: Scandalous content; scandalous cover; a story about a scandal.
There's a huge scandal in this one related to Nathan. show less

This really isn't my sort of setup, both leads just strike me as super childish. The woman is naive and out of her element and basically bungles things at nearly every turn. She's almost simple-minded really. I think it's supposed to be humorous and cute, all her misunderstandings, all her attempts to do things competently that spectacularly fail... the men in the story rail for a minute and then end up finding it incredibly adorable and endearing apparently. I don't really get it. She cries a lot, she's just not very interesting to me. And the hero always seems to be one sneeze away from a fit of anger. I feel like 80% of his dialogue was yelling, ordering, or criticizing... He's described as tall and strapping, but otherwise I don't show more get his appeal. He has the emotional intelligence of a fruit fly. I believe this is a popular HR, but the plot didn't wow me either. It just wasn't a good fit for me. show less

C (Indifferent).

A woman is kidnapped by someone who "married" her when she was four.

The issues (most glaringly: dubious consent and tradwife bs) aren't quite as bad as the first two books, and the fun aspects are significantly more fun. But the issues are still there, and they're serious enough issues that their existence is all that really matters about the book.

(Mar. 2026)

Third book in a regency series, we’d met Nathan in Caine and Jade’s story from Guardian Angel. It’s time for Nathan to go kidnap his bride—the baggage he’s got to accept in order to get the king’s gift of gold. He needs the money to grow his shipping business.

In an attempt to stop a long standing feud between the Winchester and St James families, King George came up with a contract, forcing four year-old Sara Winchester to marry fourteen year-old Nathan St James. They’ll be awarded a valuable strip of land that resides between the estates of both families. And when she gives him a child, the king’s gift of gold. If either breaks the contract, the other family gets the land. The two haven’t seen each other since being show more wed fourteen years ago and her family desperately wants Nathan to break the contract.

Chaotic humor abounds as naïve Sara is the cause of one mishap after another while aboard his ship, to the point where a sailor getting a wart also gets blamed on her. The two are as different as night and day. She’s a dreamer who grew up with the fairy tale belief that her husband loved her and should protect her from everything. That faith gets put to the test. For his part, he’s relieved that she’s nothing at all like her despicable family in either looks or temperament and both he and his crew come to appreciate her.

I love the characters. First read back in the 90s before I’d started reading so much urban fantasy with capable, kick butt heroines, today Sara seems like a wet noodle in comparison. But she’s so charming and funny. Her backbone is obvious from the start, but we see growth in that area. Expect to shed tears in more than one place as it’s easy to slip into Sara’s head and feel her emotions.

It’s not necessary to have read Guardian Angel first, but it would definitely help with a better understanding of some of the relationships as well as an issue that comes up. The characters and storyline from the first book, Lion’s Lady, have nothing to do with this third story. show less

In 1802, in an attempt to bring peace between two warring families, the king arranges a marriage between the 14-year-old Nathanialsp ok Baker, marquess of St. James, and Lady Sara Winchester, who is four. Fourteen years later and now a pirate, Nathan wishes to claim his bride--and the property that comes with her--but the Winchesters aren't cooperating. Nathan decides to indulge in a "clean, uncomplicated kidnapping" and spirits his wife out of England on one of his ships. In fact Sara, long infatuated with her absent, mysterious husband, settles into life at sea quite cheerfully, enlivening the voyage by accidentally destroying a couple of sails, giving the crew food poisoning and setting the vessel on fire. Despite it all, her show more determined affection for and faith in Nathan and his crew gradually wins her a place in their crusty, seafaring souls and a loyalty that is tested when, on their return to London, Sara's father threatens to expose an old scandal that could ruin the St. James name. show less