The Gift Hardcover - 1992

He's one of the best-known and best-loved actors around the globe - the dynamic star of classic films like Spartacus, Lonely Are the Brave, and Seven Days in May. In recent years, Hollywood legend Kirk Douglas has surprised and delighted the world with an entirely new career. Once more, here is Kirk Douglas - author. Now, the man behind the bestselling novel Dance with the Devil - hailed by the Chicago Tribune as "steamy", "bold", and "compelling" - has created The Gift, his most intriguing and gripping book to date. Summoning what the New York Times Book Review calls "the instincts of a natural storyteller", Douglas tells an enthralling tale of romance, passion, and suspense that sweeps the reader across two continents. Its protagonists are two unlikely lovers: Patricia Dennison, an orphaned American heiress, unsure about her future and her enormous fortune, a beautiful young woman surrounded by death; Miguel Cardiga, a rising star of the Portuguese bullring, whose meteoric ascent to fame is suddenly cut short by tragic injury. Patricia and Miguel are brought together by Ultimato, a magnificent gray stallion that unites them in an unexpected link of intimacy while, at the same time, they clash in frequently agonizing conflicts. As Patricia's right to her legacy is betrayed by those closest to her, as Miguel fights to reclaim his destiny as a bullfighter in the face of raging sexual jealousy - and murder - they both struggle toward a redeeming love that can defeat the darkest secrets the past can conceal. The Gift proves - again - that Kirk Douglas can entertain as wonderfully, as satisfyingly, on the printed page as he does on the motion-picture screen.