A Hometown Kind of Love
(2026)(The second book in the Maple Lake Collection series)
A novel by Janine Rosche
First love. Second chance. And one Friday-night-lights kiss they can’t forget.
Rowan Wilkes was eighteen the last time Lucas Hemingway kissed her at the fifty-yard line of Maple Lake High School. The next day, she drove out of town with a guitar in the back seat and a graduation tassel swinging from the rearview mirror, swearing she’d never look back.
She’s spent twelve years in Nashville keeping that promise.
Now she’s the country music star with a hit song the whole world thinks is about a fictional boy. He’s not fictional. And neither are her quiet, sleepless nights.
Lucas Hemingway is the boy who stayed.
High school football coach. Funeral home son. Quietly pouring every last dollar he has into the Maple Lake Integrative Counseling Center for Adolescents—because the kids in his town deserve a place where someone says they aren’t too broken, too small, too easily forgotten.
He’s the steady, faith-rooted, mustard-seed-and-shoulder-pads kind of man who shows up for everyone.
And waits for nobody.
Especially not the girl who broke his heart at eighteen and rode out of town to chase the spotlight.
Then Rowan’s sister calls.
Jenna Ludington has beaten cancer three times now, with more grace than Maple Lake knows what to do with—and the town has named a scholarship in her honor. The ceremony is at the homecoming football game in three weeks. Rowan is asked to be there. To sing. To stand in the lights of the field where she once kissed a boy who told her she could go anywhere—and meant it.
Three weeks at home. One Lucas Hemingway with a glow-up the rumors didn’t prepare her for. One brand-new song nobody knows is about him yet. And a quietly persistent question—the one Rowan hasn’t had the courage to face since the day she packed her car:
What if home was never the thing she had to leave behind?
Tropes you’ll love
Rowan Wilkes was eighteen the last time Lucas Hemingway kissed her at the fifty-yard line of Maple Lake High School. The next day, she drove out of town with a guitar in the back seat and a graduation tassel swinging from the rearview mirror, swearing she’d never look back.
She’s spent twelve years in Nashville keeping that promise.
Now she’s the country music star with a hit song the whole world thinks is about a fictional boy. He’s not fictional. And neither are her quiet, sleepless nights.
Lucas Hemingway is the boy who stayed.
High school football coach. Funeral home son. Quietly pouring every last dollar he has into the Maple Lake Integrative Counseling Center for Adolescents—because the kids in his town deserve a place where someone says they aren’t too broken, too small, too easily forgotten.
He’s the steady, faith-rooted, mustard-seed-and-shoulder-pads kind of man who shows up for everyone.
And waits for nobody.
Especially not the girl who broke his heart at eighteen and rode out of town to chase the spotlight.
Then Rowan’s sister calls.
Jenna Ludington has beaten cancer three times now, with more grace than Maple Lake knows what to do with—and the town has named a scholarship in her honor. The ceremony is at the homecoming football game in three weeks. Rowan is asked to be there. To sing. To stand in the lights of the field where she once kissed a boy who told her she could go anywhere—and meant it.
Three weeks at home. One Lucas Hemingway with a glow-up the rumors didn’t prepare her for. One brand-new song nobody knows is about him yet. And a quietly persistent question—the one Rowan hasn’t had the courage to face since the day she packed her car:
What if home was never the thing she had to leave behind?
Tropes you’ll love
- First love / second chance romance
Country music star × hometown football coach
The girl who left × the boy who stayed
Friday-night-lights / fifty-yard-line first kiss
Coming-home / homecoming-weekend romance
Cozy autumn small-town faith-forward romance
From beloved inspirational romance author Janine Rosche, A HOMETOWN KIND OF LOVE is the second novel in Falling for Flannel in Maple Lake — Sunrise Publishing’s new multi-author small-town romance series, set in Maple Lake, Minnesota. Perfect for readers of Denise Hunter, Becky Wade, Carla Laureano, Tammy L. Gray, and Susan May Warren. Pour the cider. The maples are turning.
Falling for Flannel — some stories are worth coming home for.
Genre: Inspirational
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