After years as a sweet, good-natured pushover, Annie Markham has had to face up to three hard truths:

- You've got to be tough to succeed in business and romance.

- Sometimes your meddling loved ones areright about your worthless, no-good boyfriend being worthless and no good.

- The only reliable thing about men is thatthey're totally unreliable.

Okay, she's been persuaded. So now, seven years after wisely and abruptly dumping the "love of her life," Jake Mead, things should be going better for Annie Markham, right? Unfortunately, her life's going nowhere, her family's going mental, and the family business is heading straight down the tubes. Could it get worse? Of course! Jake's back, Annie's getting ready for bankruptcy, and no one's ready for Christmas ... let alone a happy New Year.

And no amount of persuasion will ever convince Annie that magic does happenand dreams do come true, not even at the stroke of midnight on December 31 at New York's Plaza Hotel ... will it?