IF ONLY LOVE

Shelley Saywell, the daughter of a Canadian diplomat posted to Beijing, meets an enigmatic boy named Pete in Japan, when they're both in high school there, and after a classic series of missed cues they fall hard into first love. Then Shelley has to follow her family home to Canada and Pete has to head off to Ann Arbor for university, and they are lost to each other.

Thirty years later, after a career spent pursuing the toughest of stories to the most dangerous places for her documentary films and lots more personal heartbreak, Pete's name pops up in an email in Shelley's inbox and sets her off on the path to a reunion that lasts for fifteen remarkable years - until cancer knocks on the door and he is gone for good. Shelley's grief is what has compelled her to bring him back to life on the page, and she succeeds brilliantly, leaving us to marvel at the power of love and think how lucky we would be to experience even half of what these two experienced.

Shelley Saywell's films have screened at festivals around the world, been broadcast in more than thirty countries, and been shortlisted for an Academy Award. Her late husband, Daniel (Pete) Peterson, was a musician and artist who specialized in restoration projects, including the Brumidi Corridors of the US Capitol Building.