From the author of The Longest Ride and The Return comes a novel
about the enduring legacy of first love, and the decisions that haunt us
forever.
1996 was the year that changed everything for Maggie Dawes. Sent away at
sixteen to live with an aunt she barely knew in Ocracoke, a remote
village on North Carolina's Outer Banks, she could think only of the
friends and family she left behind . . . until she met Bryce Trickett,
one of the few teenagers on the island. Handsome, genuine, and newly
admitted to West Point, Bryce showed her how much there was to love
about the wind-swept beach town--and introduced her to photography, a
passion that would define the rest of her life.
By 2019, Maggie is a renowned travel photographer. She splits her time
between running a successful gallery in New York and photographing
remote locations around the world. But this year she is unexpectedly
grounded over Christmas, struggling to come to terms with a sobering
medical diagnosis. Increasingly dependent on a young assistant, she
finds herself becoming close to him.
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.
