FEBRUARY 2007:
Travis Parker, successful veterinarian, grew up around the small coastal town of Beaufort, North Carolina. Travis is married with two lovely daughters. His wife is a physician assistant at the local hospital. Life is idyllic for the Parker family, or was until three months ago. Now, Travis wonders if their lives will ever return to what they once were.

Today, he feels he's failing in practically every area of his life. Dejected, he also wonders what will happen next.

From this lowest point in Travis Parker's life, Sparks takes you back, back to the spring of 1996. It's a magical day in May when Travis Parker meets Gabby Holland, his new next door neighbor.

Their first meeting is less than auspicious, yet in time, Gabby realizes how wrong her initial impression of Travis was. The love story between these two young people mesmerizes.

Before Gabby can commit to a relationship with Travis she must break her four-year relationship with Kevin, a local insurance agency owner. Kevin isn't the marrying kind. Unlike Travis who, at 30-something, he isn't ready to settle down into an "until death we do part," commitment. Gabby, on the other hand, dreams of marriage complete with children. Yet, the choice between Kevin and Travis is difficult to make.

Ultimately she does make the choice. She is after all the product of happily married parents. "You grow up thinking the fairy tale is real, and more than that you think you're entitled to live it."

She makes her choice, but things haven't quite worked out that way for Gabby.

When Sparks transports you back to present time you finally understand why Travis Parker is so distressed. With a bouquet of flowers in his arms, he walks toward Carteret Hospital where Gabby has worked for the past ten years. The flowers are for Gabby and he is praying for forgiveness for what he's done.

There is an engaging warmth to Sparks' writing that makes you want more and more of his story. He has a style of characterization that enables you to know his players intimately and enter into their happiness and their despair. The ordinary becomes extraordinary under the spell Sparks weaves.

How far would you go to keep the hope of love alive? This is the question Travis Parker asks himself in "The Choice." Not a foolish question, but a choice between life and death.