Title: A Gifted Christmas
Author: Lucy Winton
Date: 2023
Publisher: Lucy Winton
Quote: "You can be either Gifted or Giftless, meaning you either have a power or you don't."
Book reviewers love to rave over new books. Unfortunately, some days that's not possible. Sometimes writers need to be rapped on the wrists. This is one of the times.
A Gifted Christmas is advertised as a "short story" that's meant to promote Secret Angels, a full-length novel I'm also reading (without prejudice, I hope). Sorry, it's not, and it doesn't. "Hello, my name is Louisa, I have some cousins who have telekinetic powers, and I seem to have no magical powers at all, and my cousins and I did something interesting at Christmas break" is a story. "Hello, my name is Louisa, I have some cousins who have telekinetic powers, and I seem to have no magical powers at all, but I'm trying to be grown-up about it" is not a story; it's an invitation to a response like "Well I don't believe you, and even if I did, I wouldn't care."
Well...when I was in school the slang word "freebie" had another slang meaning. It meant something you didn't want at all, something you felt you'd been cheated out of the time and trouble you invested in taking it as a gift. It acquired the meaning at our school (well publicized by my brother, I admit) of what was claimed as a "free" whack, not always landing on the throat but aimed in that direction, followed by fast, "free" footwork on the part of the whacker, who was quite likely to be the best long-distance runner in grade five. In that sense this book is truly a Friday Freebie.
Secret Angels does, however, show indications of having a plot. If you like stories about schools where students are developing magical powers along with the usual signs of adolescence, my advice would be to go ahead and order the actual book. It's terse, with hints of mysteries to solve.
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