Dezmerelda Jones relishes her quiet life as a bookshop owner. She loves nothing more than curling up in the back room with a good book. Her interactions with customers, though polite, are guarded and brief.

That’s why she’s so perturbed when the mysterious man with the most intense green eyes she’s ever beheld enters the shop and refuses to let her stonewall him. She dislikes the way his stare seems to laser through her self-made armor into her very soul. When he asks her out, she says, “No,” but he takes her rejection as a challenge.

Ten-year-old Abigail Konnofer has been obsessed with drawing a certain green Christmas ornament that has occupied her thoughts both day and night for weeks. When she sees this very ornament in Dez’s bookshop, she knows she is destined to have it. Her mother tells her they can’t afford it, but a green-eyed stranger overhears and buys it for her in secret. Abigail’s mother looks around to thank him, but he’s already disappeared.

The man returns to the bookshop on several occasions, and with each visit, he makes a lasting impression on yet another customer. By the time of the next book club meeting, all of them are clamoring to attend, eager to interact with him once more. He made his intention of being there known to all. When he doesn’t show, everyone is disappointed, but they soon form a theory that exalts his already gleaming reputation to new heights.