So begins the story of a seventeen-year-old boy living in the small town of Beaufort, North Carolina in the late 1950s who falls in love with a girl who teaches him an unforgettable lesson about acceptance and love ... and miracles.

It was the beginning of Landon's senior year in high school, and he figured it would be another year of high jinx and good times before moving on to college. But what he hadn't counted on was the entrance of Jamie Sullivan into his life. Landon had known Jamie most of his life, and like the other kids in his class, he regarded her fondly, but from a distance. As the Baptist minister's only daughter, Jamie was different from the other kids. She had a sweetness about her, but dressed in her old-fashioned outfits and with a bible always clutched in her hand, she seemed older, wiser and more pious than her years.

Landon would never have chosen to spend time with Jamie, but two events occurred that threw them together. First, Landon found himself stranded without a date for the big school dance, and Jamie, who had never been on a date in her life, was willing and available. Then, Landon found himself cast in the town Christmas pageant that had been written by Jamie's father and in which she starred. It was on the evening of the pageant that Landon looked across the stage and realized that the mousy girl he had ignored for years looked exactly like an angel.

In the months that follow, Landon will discover truths that it takes most people a lifetime to learn -- truths about the true nature of beauty, about the joy of giving, about the pain of loss, and most of all, about the transformational power of love.