The Intentional Gift
Book 7 of the Gift Series
Published: December 5, 2026
Description
Leo Evans has spent twelve years as Nathan Piazza — a false name, a quiet life in Townsend, Tennessee, a marriage to a
woman who doesn't know the full truth of who she married. He has kept the wooden box on the highest shelf and not
looked at it. He has been surviving.
Then his seven-year-old daughter Jackie opens the box, picks up a lock of her grandmother's hair, and asks: Daddy,
who's Grandma Wendy and Grandpa Darin?
The gift has found its next bearer. The box is open. There is no putting it back.
What follows is the unraveling of twelve years of careful omission — the disclosure that tests his marriage, the
discovery that Jackie has been quietly learning things no child should know, and the return of Wendy and Darin as the
full, difficult, funny, demanding presences they always were. When the question of what to do about Jackie carrying
the gift becomes urgent, it is Darin — speaking through his granddaughter's body, out of patience with his son's fear
— who finally breaks Leo open.
The solution has never been attempted. It will require all of them. And it will give Leo back everything he thought he
had lost.
woman who doesn't know the full truth of who she married. He has kept the wooden box on the highest shelf and not
looked at it. He has been surviving.
Then his seven-year-old daughter Jackie opens the box, picks up a lock of her grandmother's hair, and asks: Daddy,
who's Grandma Wendy and Grandpa Darin?
The gift has found its next bearer. The box is open. There is no putting it back.
What follows is the unraveling of twelve years of careful omission — the disclosure that tests his marriage, the
discovery that Jackie has been quietly learning things no child should know, and the return of Wendy and Darin as the
full, difficult, funny, demanding presences they always were. When the question of what to do about Jackie carrying
the gift becomes urgent, it is Darin — speaking through his granddaughter's body, out of patience with his son's fear
— who finally breaks Leo open.
The solution has never been attempted. It will require all of them. And it will give Leo back everything he thought he
had lost.
Back Cover
The gift doesn't wait for a good time to arrive.
Leo Evans has built a careful life. A new name. A good woman. A daughter with blonde hair and brown eyes who asks too
many questions. A wooden box on the highest shelf that he doesn't open.
He has survived the Vatican, a serial killer, the death of both parents, and a decade on the run. He knows how to
survive things. What he has never learned is how to trust.
Then Jackie finds the box.
Seven years old. Fearless. Completely unafraid of what she hears when she holds the lock of hair inside.
Daddy, who's Grandma Wendy and Grandpa Darin?
The gift has come back to the bloodline, and with it comes everything Leo buried — the truth he owes his wife, the
parents he lost before he knew them, and a choice that will require him to open a door he has kept locked for twelve
years.
Wendy and Darin are not done.
Neither is he.
The Intentional Gift is the seventh and final book in The Gift series — a story about what it costs to love across
impossible distances, and what it means to finally, fully, come home.
Leo Evans has built a careful life. A new name. A good woman. A daughter with blonde hair and brown eyes who asks too
many questions. A wooden box on the highest shelf that he doesn't open.
He has survived the Vatican, a serial killer, the death of both parents, and a decade on the run. He knows how to
survive things. What he has never learned is how to trust.
Then Jackie finds the box.
Seven years old. Fearless. Completely unafraid of what she hears when she holds the lock of hair inside.
Daddy, who's Grandma Wendy and Grandpa Darin?
The gift has come back to the bloodline, and with it comes everything Leo buried — the truth he owes his wife, the
parents he lost before he knew them, and a choice that will require him to open a door he has kept locked for twelve
years.
Wendy and Darin are not done.
Neither is he.
The Intentional Gift is the seventh and final book in The Gift series — a story about what it costs to love across
impossible distances, and what it means to finally, fully, come home.