In The Wish by Nicholas Sparks, World-traveling photographer Maggie Dawes has had a pretty 
remarkable career in most people’s eyes–and all before turning forty. She’s been featured in many important publications and currently co-owns a gallery in Manhattan. But it’s not always been all accolades and celebrations. If Maggie is honest, the majority of it has been on the lonely side. This year, as the holidays draw near, she’s sadly dealt a devastating blow. Her medical condition has worsened and things aren’t looking to be in her favor. Knowing this might be her last Christmas, Maggie intends to make the most of what time she has left.
“In 1995, when I was sixteen years old, I began to lead a secret life,” she started.
As Maggie struggles to get through each day, wondering what the near future will bring, she forms a friendship with a young man recently hired at the gallery. Kind, compassionate, and an excellent listener, he spends time with Maggie as she regales him with the story of her first love, Bryce. Reliving the time when she was sixteen, in quite a predicament, and suddenly under her aunt’s care on an island in the Outer Banks, Maggie should be heartbroken. Even though she still feels the loss from that time, she realizes that the pieces it set into motion led her to who she is today and gave her the tremendous adventures she’s had across continents far and wide.
‘She was checking off once-in-a-lifetime experiences with someone she’d come to care about, and sharing the story of her past had lifted her spirits.’
Note: No author or book bashing, please and thank you.
In true Nicholas Sparks’ form, The Wish tore my heart open–but not before witnessing the incredible strength that love, friendship, and close, personal bonds can bring to our lives.
“Never forget that love is always stronger than fear. Love saved me, and I know it will save you, too.”
Trigger warning: View Spoiler »
The Wish truly had an old school Nicholas Sparks feel to it, with the complex level of emotions our heroine Maggie endured and with the author’s compelling storytelling. And I just loved the dual timeline. We got to see her POV during the present day after receiving a heartbreaking diagnosis as well as an event that occurred when Maggie was sixteen. Something that changed her outlook on everything. And certainly something that altered the path her life took afterwards.
I hate to give too many details here because I think the way Sparks told Maggie’s tale was not only a bit clever, it was done in a way that will give readers the biggest impact emotionally. A good chunk of the time period, at least during present day, was set during Christmas. So Maggie’s sentimental recollection of her life, as told to a newfound friend, was a perfect fit where the holiday lends itself to the retelling of past memories, traditions, and family stories. And what a journey Maggie’s life was. It was oftentimes lonely, but she impacted so many people with her wonderful photographs and later on, her candid videos about her diagnosis she posted on social media.
As you can tell, The Wish wasn’t necessarily a lighthearted novel. (So keep your tissues handy) But it was one with powerful messages of hope, acceptance, sacrifices, inspiration, and spoke of the family you are born to and the one you create. I think Maggie’s book will quickly resonate with longtime Nicholas Sparks fans–and perhaps it will even become keeper shelf material, as it is for this humble reader.
Book Info:
Publication: Published September 28th, 2021 | Grand Central |
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 meets Bryce Trickett, one of the few teenagers on the island. Handsome, genuine, and newly admitted to West Point, Bryce gradually shows her how much there is to love about the wind-swept beach town—and introduces her to photography, a passion that will 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.
