Prologue

“ R emember, Isla, don’t worry about princes. They’re overrated. You will make your own happily ever after.” Those were my grandmother’s last words to me.

My grandmother, Maeve, or Nonna, as my sisters and I called her, once told me that everyone has a happily ever after waiting for them. “You just have to be ready for it, my bonny little one, or it might pass you right by,” she’d tell me as she brushed my long, blonde hair.

Nonna loved to tell us stories that were chock-full of magical lands, handsome princes, glistening castles and grumbly villains. She’d fill her hearth with bristly pinecones and fragrant chopped wood, signaling in her own sweet way that we were about to hear a story. My four sisters and I would run for the dark mahogany chest where she kept her handmade quilts. Fat cherubs smiled up at us from the top of the chest, seeming to laugh at us as we argued over who would get to use the kitten quilt. The fabric on the kitten quilt had been worn soft as velvet, and each colorful square had a fluffy, fat kitten in the middle of it. Aria was the oldest and had the longest reach, so she invariably snagged the kitten quilt. Occasionally, Layla, the youngest, would put up enough of a fuss that Aria would hand her the quilt and settle for her second favorite, a red-and-green calico Christmas quilt.

While the others fought over the kitten quilt, I always reached for the mod flower quilt. It was dotted with massive flowers, each a different color. Nonna sewed it as a sixteenth birthday present for our mom, and I loved it the most because if I pulled it close enough around me, I could still smell my mom’s sweet scent in the folds of the fabric.

Nonna would put on soft, haunting flute or fiddle music before settling herself into her favorite rocking chair, the one that squeaked every time she rocked forward. She’d complain about the pain in her bones as she put her knit shawl over her knees. But first, she’d place a chipped blue porcelain plate of her buttery shortbread in the center of the floor and, like we did with the kitten quilt, we’d all dive for the biggest piece. Treats in hand and wrapped in our wonderfully worn quilts, we’d settle around her on the floor, forming a half-circle of eager smiles and sparkling eyes as we waited for her glorious tale.

We’d listen raptly as if she was telling us all the secrets of the world with her lyrical Irish accent. Her rosy apple cheeks would round with laughter when the story was funny, and when the story got dark or scary, she’d growl or jump suddenly, and we’d shriek and scream and fall apart in bouts of laughter.

Aria, always needing to be the brave big sister, loved the stories where a heroine met her love match in a swashbuckling pirate or charismatic highwayman. She loved the heroes who wore worn black boots, leathery frock coats and crooked, cocky smiles. Aria would sit up straighter under the quilt whenever the thin line between hero and rogue was crossed.

Ella, the middle sister, was our family bookworm. She loved the stories that took us out onto a cold, foggy moor or into a dark, dank castle. The more mystery surrounding the leading man, the better. She loved the stories featuring a quiet, troubled, scarred hero, as long as he came with a dry sense of humor and … perhaps … an ivy-covered manor house.

Ava was a year older than Layla and loved to remind her little sister that she was much more mature. Ava’s sparkling green eyes always rounded during the adventurous tales, the ones that took the heroine to the far ends of the earth where she—naturally—crossed paths with a handsome fellow adventurer. Then the two sailed or hiked or floated in a big, striped hot air balloon into the fading sunset.

Layla loved any story with lots of animals and a tall, handsome hero on horseback. As the youngest of the bunch, she crinkled her nose and made faces when the couple kissed at the end, but the rest of us giggled with glee at the happy ending.

And then there was me, Isla, the second oldest. I loved the Cinderella-style stories, where the heroine worked hard, did all the right things and was eventually rewarded with a glorious happy ending.

Sometimes at night, I’d lay in the bed I shared with Aria and Layla, and I’d think about my prince, somewhere in the world, waiting to give me that fairy-tale ending Nonna had promised. Nonna would hear me tossing and turning, and she’d come up to kiss me goodnight and tuck me in again. I’d ask her if she was sure there was really a fairy-tale ending waiting for me. She’d lean over and kiss my forehead and say, “Aye, my little cookie crumble, your happily ever after will come soon enough.”

But little girls grow up, and the ups and downs of reality hit more often than one would like. And that’s when I realized that Nonna’s last words, telling me to make my own happy ending, were the most profound of all.