The Wish

1996 was the year that changed everything for Maggie Dawes - the year she turned 16 and was sent away to live with an aunt she barely knew in Ocracoke, a remote village on North Carolina's Outer Banks. Lonely and miserable, she can think only of the friends and family she'd left behind … until one day her aunt introduces her to Bryce Trickett, one of the few teenagers on the island. Despite her unhappy circumstances, Maggie recognizes right away that Bryce is extraordinary - as different from the boys she knew at home as a diamond from a rhinestone. Handsome, genuine, and exceptional enough to be admitted to West Point, Bryce gradually shows her how much there is to love about the isolated, wind-swept beach town, even in the off-season -- and also introduces her to photography, a passion that will define the rest of her life … much like Bryce.

By 2019, Maggie is a renowned travel photographer living in New York City. At 37, she splits her time between running a successful gallery and photographing remote and iconic locations around the world. But this year she finds herself unexpectedly grounded in New York during the Christmas holidays, struggling to come to terms with a newly sobering medical diagnosis. Increasingly dependent on a young assistant to manage the gallery's business, she finds herself becoming surprisingly close with the earnest young man; and as they count down the last days of the season together, she begins to tell him the story of another Christmas, decades earlier - and the love that set her on a course she never could have imagined for herself.