It will be one year until they turn fifty. One year to make a wish –– and then make sure that it comes true...

Once they were childhood friends who celebrated birthdays together, sharing laughter and tears and heartfelt dreams. Then they lost touch. Yet now, on the brink of turning fifty, one of them is desperate enough to contact the others –– looking for more than an innocent reunion...

ABIGAIL: She is a star, a new Martha Stewart whose weekly TV show has won her millions of fans.

MADDIE: A brilliant photographer under contract with a hip magazine.

KRIS: A daredevil writer whose taut thrillers have been on the bestseller list for years.

But one of them carries a dark, tormenting secret; another is obsessed with the man she loved and lost; a third would give anything to start over; and all are haunted by the stark passage of time.

So what will the friends do? They'll share their birthday wishes just like before, only this time they'll go to any lengths to make sure their wishes come true...

I was on a plane from Hartford to Detroit, when a newspaper article caught my eye: Beginning in 1997, the headline read, every 7-1/2 seconds a Baby Boomer will turn 50.

I am a Baby Boomer. And though I would wait until 1998 to turn fifty, I felt the creep of that milestone gaining momentum, followed by the horrifying question: what the heck had I done with my life and what the heck could I still accomplish with what little time there was left?

It was time to make new wishes and to set new goals. It was time not to think in terms of mid-life crisis, but instead, of mid-life review.

After all, every 7-1/2 seconds, one of us would become one of them: the older generation.

By the time the plane landed, I knew I had the idea for my next book.

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