A Sugar & Spice Holiday

Chinese-American Suzy Yung has succeeded in everything she's done in her drive to be the best. As a Los Angeles-based architect, she is on the cusp of a promotion at her firm, right on her planned track. However she learns that she is competing against one of her colleagues, Marshall, for the promotion, he who, despite being a talented architect like her, has always greased the wheels as his way to be noticed above others. The promotion will be awarded to whoever's design is chosen by their client for a major project, the designs due by New Year's Eve in a couple of weeks, which means that Suzy's trip home to small town Hampton Meadows, Maine, for the holidays will be a working one. She finds upon her arrival home that there is pressure for her to participate in the annual gingerbread contest in which the six communities in Happy Valley compete, this year for a $15,000 grand prize, the team from Hampton Meadows earmarking that money if they win for much needed renovations to the town's community center. Suzy's love for food, especially baking, came from her paternal grandmother, her "Nema", that love the reason Suzy frames everything around food and in being known as the best gingerbread maker in town, just like Nema was before her. However, Suzy hasn't baked since Nema passed, but decides to join the Hampton Meadows team in honor of Nema, who taught classes at the community center. In the process, Suzy is reunited with her childhood friend, Billy Martin, who recently moved back to town. That move back was both in running from his life as a Silicon Valley designer, and running to his family toy shop in helping his ailing father. While Suzy and Billy were more like buddies in school, Billy always dragging Suzy into the only trouble she ever faced, which put Billy in Suzy's mother's bad books, they seem to be verging into a potentially more romantic relationship. But with Suzy's work pressures, and the gingerbread competition on top of trying to find time with Billy on a personal level, Suzy may find that she can't have it all, especially if Billy, who is still trying to find his place in life, may not live up to the high standards she sets not only for herself but for others around her.—Huggo