It will be a travesty if our guests go home tonight without a copy of Noa’s new book. I can feel them out there, two hundred and sixty-six Noa Callaway fans, all along the Northeast Corridor, from Pawtucket, Rhode Island, to Wynnewood, Pennsylvania. They are taking off work two hours early, confirming babysitters, venmoing dog walkers. They are dropboxing Monday’s presentation and rummaging through drawers for unripped tights while toddlers cling to their legs. In a dozen different ways, these intrepid ladies are getting shit done so they can take a night for themselves. So they can train to the Hotel Shivani and be among the first to get their hands on Two Hundred and Sixty-Six Vows.

I think it’s Noa’s best book yet.

The story takes place at a destination wedding over Valentine’s Day weekend. On a whim, the bride invites the full wedding party to stand up and renew their own vows—to a spouse, to a friend, to a pet, to the universe . . . with disastrous results. It’s moving and funny, meta and of-the-moment, the way Noa’s books always are.

The fact that the novel ends with a steamy scene on a Positano beach is just one more reason I know Noa Callaway and I are psychically connected. Family legend has it that my mother was conceived on a beach in Positano, and while that might not seem like information most kids would cherish knowing, I was raised in part by my grandmother, who defines the term sex-positive.

I’ve always wanted to visit Positano. Vows makes me feel almost like I have.

I check my phone for a response from Terry about the signed books. Nothing. I can’t let Noa’s readers down tonight. Especially because Two Hundred and Sixty-Six Vows may be the last Noa Callaway book they get to read for a while. . . .

Our biggest author is four months late delivering her next manuscript. Four unprecedented months late.

After a decade of delivering a book each year, the prolific Noa Callaway suddenly seems to have no plans of turning in her next draft. My attempts to get past Terry and connect with Noa have been fruitless. It’s only a matter of time before our production department expects me to turn over a tightly edited—and nonexistent—manuscript.

But that’s a panic attack for another day. Alix is due back from maternity leave next week, and the pressure will be on.

I’m flipping through my mail, waiting impatiently for Terry’s response, knowing I need to get down to the venue—when my hands find a little brown box in the middle of the mail Joe delivered. It’s no bigger than a deck of cards. My distracted mind recognizes the return address and I gasp.

It’s the Valentine’s gift I had handmade for my fiancé, Ryan. I unwrap the paper, slide open the box, and smile.