I’d like to thank you for downloading the ebook version of my latest novel, The Wish. It’s a very special book to me, as it combines two deep-seated passions of mine: a fascination with travel (I’ve actually included some of the photos from my travels in this ebook edition), and my profound attachment to North Carolina, where all of my novels have been set.
In the past eighteen years, beginning with the around-the-world trip documented in my memoir, Three Weeks with My Brother, I’ve had the privilege of traveling to some of the most remarkable places in the world, each unforgettable for its natural geography, rare cultural history, or astounding wildlife. However, the best part of any trip is coming home…and small-town North Carolina has been my beloved home for decades now. I never tire of its slow rhythms, easygoing charm, and varied landscapes.
On the first page of The Wish, you will meet Maggie Dawes, a New York–based travel photographer who has made a career of capturing images from every corner of the globe. But the origins of her extraordinary career lie in a summer when she was just sixteen years old and found herself exiled to a tiny island off the coast of North Carolina in the off-season. Ocracoke Island is a tiny resort destination, windswept and beautiful, but quite isolated during the winter… Nonetheless it is there, among the hardy island folk, that she finds not only a first love that marks her forever, but also family and a passion that will become her career.
I am attached to all of the books I’ve written for different reasons, but I do think this might be one of my very best. You will cry, but hopefully you’ll also laugh, and come away deeply satisfied from this story of a woman trying to reconcile what “might have been” with the way things turned out for her. It’s a challenge we all face as humans— to find and express love, in the time and in the ways that our often- unpredictable lives allow.
Thank you again, and happy reading,
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Nicholas Sparks
