TWELVE TIMES BLESSED Jacquelyn Mitchard is one of America's best-loved storytellers. Fans adore her novels for their exquisite, gripping stories about family bonds. Now this master of the drama of daily life offers readers a different kind of boy-meets-girl tale, by turns frank and playful, that ponders the question: Can love conquer marriage?It is True Dickinson's forty-third birthday, and her best friends have gathered on this snowy night in Cape Cod at a trendy neighborhood restaurant to celebrate. True has never felt more alone.It's been eight years since the death of her husband, a pilot who, ironically, died in a car crash, leaving her to raise their son on her own. Both her son and her small business are thriving, and True's life is full. The success of her company, the love of her friends, and the proximity of her mother (for better and for worse) leave her with very little time for reflection, but if not now, when? Coming up on forty-three makes True realize that there is an empty space in her life that friends and family cannot fill. She feels her youth and beauty slipping away, and the possibility for romance has never seemed more remote.But everything will change the moment True and her beloved assistant, Isabelle, slide into a snow-filled ditch on the drive home. Saved by a young man she met earlier at the restaurant, True comes face-to- face with the opportunity to let love back into her life -- that is, if she can overcome her own fears, and if these two spirits can find a way to tame each other's wild hearts and to curb their supremely independent natures.Twelve Times Blessed is the story of one year of transformation in a woman's life, and an unforgettable tale of the perils and pleasures of love in the modern age.