Plot

When a romantic painting of a Christmas market captures the imagination of copy editor Lea, she is sent to France with pragmatic reporter Mark to uncover the mystery behind the artist.

Lea and Mark are a copy editor and reporter respectively at the Denver Post. Mark pays little notice of her due to the difference in their status, and Lea doesn't much like Mark in his moodiness - he is even referred to as "Moody Mark" by their colleagues - and because he is a little too loose in the way he uses the English language which she always has to correct in his pieces. Their editor is looking for the feature story for their holiday edition, so Lea proposes one on the new post-war French painting at the Museum of Modern Art by an anonymous artist signing it solely by "F" with an enigmatic unknown female figure in the painting only being called Ma Fleur by the artist. Lea recently came into possession of a musical jewelry box from that era in which she found in a hidden compartment an incomplete journal written by F in 1959 outlining his forbidden love affair with Ma Fleur. They had met at a Christmas market in the French town of Petit Marchon, with legend being that true love is found at such markets. The incomplete nature of the journal is that neither F or Ma Fleur is fully identified by their real names and what happened between them was probably mentioned in the missing pages of the journal. Their editor okays the piece, but Mark and Lea are both dismayed that their editor assigns this story to Mark who is to investigate in Petit Marchon. Mark sees this assignment as a Christmas fluff piece that is beneath him as a hard hitting journalist, and Lea believes the story hers and what could have been her big break. Lea is able to convince their editor to allow her to go along with Mark to cover the story together. Equally exciting for Lea is that she is a romantic at heart, and this is her first ever international trip, none other than to one of the most romantic areas of the world where she can test out the legend of love being found at the Christmas market. As they go about the story sometimes individually in their different working styles and different levels of experience, and sometimes together, they may find that the story and the Christmas market work their magic with who they least expect.—Huggo