Murray Wolbach, III

One In A Billion An unexpected love story Danny McDowell is nine years old on the fateful day that he is forced to go to a party given by the managing partner of the law firm his father works for. Worse, he’s pulled out of a baseball game his team is actually winning just when he’s needed most. What Danny doesn’t know as he walks unhappily with his parents from their car to the Willow Plantation Mansion, is that by the time he leaves, his life will have changed, utterly. In the novel One In A Billion we follow Danny McDowell and Ariel Buchanan, the managing partner’s beautiful daughter who is five years old on the magical day when Danny and Ariel unexpectedly meet. It is a mixture of coincidence and chance that set Danny and Ariel down a path that starts with innocent friendship and discovery, but that slowly leads them out of childhood and into a harsher world where their friendship must deal, among other things, with real life tragedy and its aftermath. However, the deck is stacked against them. As Danny’s mother Charlotte points out early on to Ariel’s mother Denise Buchanan, “Nine and five is kind of an awkward age difference.” It is a perceptive comment that becomes more and more accurate as the children age, until finally, at ages eighteen and fourteen, it becomes completely clear that the age difference is insurmountable. And at the same time there is unexpected danger that has been festering and now lies just around the corner.