Plot summary

Alec Bailey is a gambling, womanizing, bankrupt electrical repairman who is still traumatized by his twin brother Charlie's death. Penniless and almost in the poorhouse, Alec learns that he has an uncle, his mother's brother Richard Heacock, living in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Richard offers to solve Alec's debts with one condition: that Alec moves to Halifax and lives there for one year. Reluctant to travel but threatened by a violent money collector, Alec accepts Uncle Richard's proposal. When he arrives in Halifax, he discovers that the villagers believe that he is "The Chosen One," a man with the ability to heal all diseases. At the same time, Halifax's local Sheriff starts a personal campaign against Alec in the belief that he's a fraud who's cheating people. Trapped by a situation that little by little overwhelms him, Alec finds a friend in lovely local veterinarian Cecilia. Richard tells Alec that his ancestors are a family of healers with the gift to heal if it's in the fate of the each person to be healed--a gift that skips a generation and must be accepted or rejected at midnight on one's 30th birthday. Refusing his gift the next day, Alec meets Abigail, a sassy, worldly, sarcastic 14-year-old with terminal cancer. Trying to convince Abigail's parents that he can't heal her, Alec accepts Abigail's idea to spend time together over the weekend to escape two days from her overprotective parents. Alec discovers in Abigail a force of nature full of life and energy at the same time that feelings between Cecilia and him develop. Alec starts to question himself and the bad decisions in his life, asking God for a second chance to recover his gift and save Abigail, but, when Uncle Richard reveals that the gift can't be recovered once renounced, Alec finds a way to give Abigail the best weekend he can deliver.—Chockys