Mystic Christmas (2023)

Marine biologist Dr. Juniper Jones, a self-admitted introvert, has never stayed in one place for long, preferring to see the world, thus needing to make the most of her time in each locale. In the approach to Christmas, she, currently in Amsterdam, plans to head to Scandinavia for the holidays to see the northern lights, before heading on to her next assignment in South Africa. However, she answers the call of her best friend, Candice Adams of the Mystic Aquarium in Mystic, Connecticut, to work at the aquarium, in the current absence of a head marine biologist, solely to oversee the imminent release of what was an injured harbor seal before she heads off to South Africa on December 26th. Going to Mystic is despite learning that Candice's brother, Sawyer Adams, still lives there. Only having met once ten years ago at Candice's wedding, Juniper and Sawyer had a memorable couple of days until miscommunication led to them breaking contact with each other. While Juniper and Sawyer still think about the other, they blame the other for the way things ended between the two of them. Unlike Juniper, Sawyer, who owns his own pizza parlor, talks often about seeing the world, but his knowledge of the world is largely limited to Google as he feels it is never a good time to leave Mystic. Juniper and Sawyer's reunion is a cordial but cautious one in each not liking confrontation. The question then becomes if the two can overcome their differences to make a relationship work, those differences which still do include what happened between them ten years ago for them to break contact.—Huggo