The story follows 14 months in the life of Bree Miller, a waitress living a quiet existence in small-town Panama, Vermont. Bree is alone in the world; her father and grandparents are dead, and she was abandoned by her mother at birth. One night, she is walking home from work during a snowstorm when a jeep that is hit by another car plows into her. When her heart stops on the operating table, she has a near-death experience, during which she is embraced by a bright white light and promised three wishes if she returns to her body. Upon awakening in the hospital, she finds that the man who hit her (a handsome, single, wealthy author) has been at her bedside since the accident. Bree, who has been unlucky in love, immediately falls in love with him, and he (who up until this point has been a somewhat of a cad) falls mindlessly in love with her. The rest of the story is concerned with Bree using up her three wishes: to cement her relationship with this man, to find her lost mother, and to become pregnant (she is infertile as a result of the accident). Although much of the story positively drips with pathos, fans will enjoy the various small subplots and the surprise ending.