One Fateful Christmas Eve

By Holly Schindler

Is the magic of Christmas Eve enough to change Mallory's mind and heart?

Mallory Stewart is an on-the-rise young editor certain she's about to land a position at one of the "Big Five" publishing houses. All she has to do to clinch the deal is attend her prospective boss's Christmas Eve party. But Graham Kendall, the charismatic author of a bestselling book on fate, insists her plans are about to be thwarted. Mallory immediately discounts Dr. Kendall's warnings. Though she edited his book, the industrious Mallory believes in hard work rather than luck or good fortune. When a series of devastating Christmas Eve misadventures conspire against her, Mallory is forced to reexamine everything—her beliefs, her dreams, her own definition of success. What will Mallory choose? What will she discover—about Graham, about her own destiny, even about…a man's socks? (Yes, socks.)

• Language: English
• Publisher: Holly Schindler, LLC
• Release date: Oct 1, 2016
• ISBN: 9781536518290

Holly Schindler

I'm a critically acclaimed and award winning hybrid author for readers of all ages--both the young in years and the young at heart. My work has received starred reviews from Booklist and Publishers Weekly, appeared on Booklist’s Best First Novels for Youth, PW Picks, School Library Journal’s What’s Hot in YA, and B&N’s 2016 YA Books with Irresistible Concepts and Most Anticipated May 2016 YA Books. My YA work has also won a Silver Medal in ForeWord Reviews Book of the Year and a Gold Medal in the IPPY Awards. My MG work is critically acclaimed as well, having made the master lists for several state readers’ awards, including this year’s Oklahoma Sequoyah Book Award and Missouri’s Mark Twain Readers Award, and has been chosen for inclusion in the Scholastic Book Fair.

Book preview

3:30 p.m.

Mallory was well aware that crossing her arms over her chest in disgust and attempting to hide behind the punchbowl at the office holiday party was going to earn her all kinds of nicknames from her exuberant co-workers. Not just the usual Scrooge or Grinch, either—she worked in a publishing house, after all. They were all going to come up with far more creative monikers. The kind of nicknames that everyone would remember and continue to attach to her well into the new year, since not a single employee was even the slightest bit tipsy. No, the boisterous cheer filling the room—the laughing and the squealing and the silly way everyone was throwing their arms around each other’s necks, tying each other up in silver tinsel, and singing various carols in red-faced off-key unison had nothing at all to do with the punchbowl in front of Mallory. Instead, it had everything to do with the reason she was wearing an uncharacteristic pout-slash-scowl.

It was a little lonely, actually, being the only one who didn’t feel like tap dancing on the closest desk. But Mallory didn’t want any of her co-workers to come grab her by the wrist, tug her into their group, cover her head with sticky-backed gift bows, either. She raised her top lip like a threatening Doberman when her assistant—a young intern from NYU—came dancing toward her with a sprig of mistletoe dangling from his hand.

Bet you wouldn’t mind if Graham came over here with this, remarked Toby, her assistant, attempting to push the sprig closer to her cheek, like a little boy taunting a girl on the playground.

His well-intentioned tease only made Mallory tighten her crossed arms and deepen her frown. She wasn’t in the mood to play. Not today.

What’s with you? This is a party! Not a colonoscopy. Toby finally withdrew the mistletoe completely.

Behind on my Christmas shopping. Mallory attempted to raise her voice, to sound holly-jolly. But it only came out sounding painful, like her knee had been whacked with a metal desk drawer.

You don’t like him, Toby said, his tone carrying a mix of shock and disbelief. His face fell and his eyes begged Mallory to take it back. He was acting as though Mallory had just told him Santa wasn’t real.

She sighed, instantly feeling bad. Mallory wanted to like Graham. She really did. She wanted to be infected with the same joy that had filled the rest of the editors and assistants and publicists at Bib Books, a metaphysical publishing house in lower Manhattan.

Working for a publishing house in Manhattan. That in itself was impressive to anyone outside the industry. When Mallory went home to Jersey, the old faces from the neighborhood looked at her with a weird mix of awe and awkwardness and intimidation, like they were standing in front of a person who had done something along the lines of skip across the surface of the moon—in six-inch platform heels, no less. In New York’s literary world, though, Bib was merely a pebble in the midst of the mountains that made up the Big Five publishing houses. Mallory’s house released books on reading the classic Celtic Cross tarot card spread, unlocking the power of crystals, and understanding the four levels of reality, while the other houses in New York published books from Nobel-winning scientists and memoirs by A-list celebrities. And, of course, bestselling novels. The mere word made a warm bubble of happiness swell in Mallory’s chest. Novels, the true love of Mallory’s life. As far as she was concerned, fiction filled the air with tiny sparkles of light—it made the world twinkle. It made life smell clean and pure, like fresh December snow.

On the other hand, though, she found the books she and her co-workers published to be inescapably lowbrow. Borderline ridiculous, at times. She also disliked the fact that their books were housed in the nonfiction sections of tiny indie bookshops. As though they were brimming with verified, indisputable facts. She knew, too, the editors at the Big Five thought the same thing about Bib: Ridiculous. Full of utter nonsense. Lately, she’d found herself struggling to convince herself that there was a greater purpose in her everyday duties—helping authors find their unique voices, for instance. That was admirable. Still—she wasn’t entirely sure it was enough anymore for Bib to be the first step, a place to tread, keep her nose above Manhattan waters until a new position at another house opened up. She wasn’t sure she could justify working there much longer if she didn’t entirely believe in what they were publishing.

Actually, the staff at Bib had, until recently, completely satisfied her. Made her feel like she hadn’t just landed at the first place but at a good place. Her co-workers were fun and optimistic and still filled with far more why nots than piles of reasons not to start some new project. They were tiny players in a big game, but so what? They were playing it—that was all that mattered. Two years ago, it was all that had mattered to Mallory. When she’d first started work at Bib, she’d skipped to and from the subway.

Now, though…Her eyes bounced between the standing desks and exercise-ball chairs until she found him. Graham Kendall. Looking far more like the cover of a romance novel, with his Lin-Manuel Miranda black ponytail and his olive skin and the broad shoulders pushing against his deep red cable knit sweater, than the PhD he actually was. Dr. Kendall, who had traced fate through the writings of all world religions, and had come to write a book on the subject. A book that proposed fate was as real as the chairs and the pavement and the floors that supported them all every day. Happy accidents and good luck and all those it turned out to be for the best unexpected events—that was in no way mere happenstance. It was fate.

Fate, Mallory thought, pushing her oversized Iris Apfel-style glasses higher up her nose. Another silly notion filling another two hundred pages of a book that had, upon its acquisition, seemed destined to go the way of the rest of Bib’s releases: falling straight into the same dark hole of obscurity. But Dr. Kendall had been the kind of good looking and charming that had made the publicity department sit up straight in their chairs, call the nearby talk show booking crews with an unheard of intensity. Once he’d arrived on set, even the cameras of morning talk shows had fallen head over heels for him. And that silly little book had exploded. Maybe it was the handsome Dr. Kendall’s charisma. Or the fact that a book on fate was hitting at the right time, here in the holiday season. But his book had landed on the NYT list. The first ever bestseller for Bib.

And now, the party was in full swing.

Usually, the staff would be long gone on Christmas Eve. But having a bestseller meant that they’d not only been fielding publicity calls for Graham Kendall, but for their publishing house as well. Publishers Weekly wanted to do an article on Bib in the first issue of the new year. Which meant interviews needed to be done. Emails sent. Calls returned. The iron was hot; this was the time to strike. (Ah, it was a cliché that editor Mallory Stewart would have immediately scratched from any manuscript on her desk. But often, phrases became clichés, so overused they were fraying at the edges just like a well-worn pair of jeans, because they were also true.)

They’d finally wrapped up their work, pushed their chairs away from their desks, and immediately launched into their celebration: part holiday, part unforeseen success, part Look out, Big Five, you ain’t seen nothin’ yet.

Try as she might, though, Mallory could not manage to talk herself into getting into the same ferociously jubilant mood. She sipped at the heavily spiked punch as she watched every single woman in the office engage in some serious Dr. Kendall fawning. She just didn’t believe in it, not in some predestined fate. Not in some magical force that swept a person into the spot where she needed to be in life. She believed in hard work. Yes, she believed in that over all else: late nights and a back curled over a desk and the soft glow of a computer screen. Magic. Fate. She would have happily entertained it as the premise of a novel. Even a love story. Had it come with a fiction label, it would have seemed to send a sparkle out into the world.

Calling it truth, factual, nonfiction, though—it just felt like such a lie.

A high-profile lie at that. A lie that the rest of the world had gotten wind of. And as the book’s editor, Mallory felt responsible for the lie. At least in part. She felt like some catty teen girl who had spread a rumor that she knew not to be true, because it would help her advance in some way. Climb to a higher rung on some social ladder.

Mallory Stewart had never been accused of being a liar in her life. Not ever. But here she was, responsible for spreading Dr. Kendall’s ridiculous outright fabrication.

Graham waved his arms, finishing up some long-winded story. The women around him laughed and took turns finding some excuse to touch his arm or lean closer to him.

Oh, sure, she got it, the desire to get closer. There was definitely something about Dr. Kendall. And it wasn’t just his looks or his movie-star-level charm. He had an easy, enticing glow about him. Like a fireplace during a snowstorm—something you found yourself wanting to crawl closer to, snuggle up against.

Mallory’d had to push it down, that urge to get closer, while she’d edited Graham’s book. Unlike most of their authors, scattered across the entirety of the country, Graham Kendall was actually based in New York. Well, not in Manhattan itself, but in