One In A Billion

A Love Story Like No Other Danny McDowell is nine years old at the unexpected and magical moment when he first meets five-year-old Ariel Buchanan. The meeting starts Danny and Ariel on a twenty-year odyssey where they discover that magic can only stretch so far as they head into an unknown future that contains, not only the first inklings of love, but also tragedy, and unforeseen danger.

One In A Billion An unexpected love story Danny McDowell is nine years old on the fateful day that he is forced to go to a party given by the managing partner of the law firm his father works for. Worse, he’s pulled out of a baseball game his team is actually winning just when he’s needed most. What Danny doesn’t know as he walks unhappily with his parents from their car to the Willow Plantation Mansion, is that by the time he leaves, his life will have changed, utterly. In the novel One In A Billion we follow Danny McDowell and Ariel Buchanan, the managing partner’s beautiful daughter who is five years old on the magical day when Danny and Ariel unexpectedly meet. It is a mixture of coincidence and chance that set Danny and Ariel down a path that starts with innocent friendship and discovery, but that slowly leads them out of childhood and into a harsher world where their friendship must deal, among other things, with real life tragedy and its aftermath. However, the deck is stacked against them. As Danny’s mother Charlotte points out early on to Ariel’s mother Denise Buchanan, “Nine and five is kind of an awkward age difference.” It is a perceptive comment that becomes more and more accurate as the children age, until finally, at ages eighteen and fourteen, it becomes completely clear that the age difference is insurmountable. And at the same time there is unexpected danger that has been festering and now lies just around the corner.

Jonathan Calendar’s early career started in college when he sold his first television script. He graduated from The University of Arizona with a dual major in English Literature and Creative Writing and a minor in Philosophy. After spending some time in Hollywood, and having just gotten engaged, he decided that it was time to get a real job and go back to writing when he could do it at his own pace. One In A Billion is his first novel. He is starting research on his second novel, tentatively titled, Through The Disguise. His hobbies include horseback riding, tennis and, when he is in need of extra frustration, golf. He also has a lifelong love of sports cars. Jonathan Calendar and his wife have two children and split their time between Highland Park, Illinois and Tucson, Arizona.