Sometimes our dreams have to die before true love can begin ...William Wise, 50, lives a brokenhearted yet ordered life with his dog Bump in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia in a log "mansion" he built by hand as therapy after his wife unexpectedly divorced him. William had re-purposed his grief into a memoir that became a National Book Award finalist, and he is content to lead a silent, unfulfilled life ...... until Brittany Taylor limps off the Appalachian Trail onto his property, enters the uncharted depths of William's soul, and turns William's orderly world completely upside down.At 32, intelligent, free-spirited, fun, spontaneous, and highly unpredictable, Brittany Taylor is a paralegal and law student from Baltimore who agrees to attend the National Book Awards ceremony in Manhattan as part of a single date with William to get back at her on-again, off-again boyfriend Deandre. After William meticulously plans the "best Wednesday date in the history of New York City" down to the minute--and Brittany destroys William's "date itinerary" in a matter of seconds--William wonders if his "Cinderella" will choose the right prince.Laugh-out-loud funny, moving, sexy, and as real as true romance gets, THE DATE proves that no matter how many of our dreams die, we sometimes get to keep what we wish for.