The Sweetest Thing About You
(2026)(The third book in the Maple Lake Collection series)
A novel by Alyssa Schwarz
He was the last man she expected. She was the last reason he’d ever stay.
Charlotte Montgomery thought she was getting engaged. She got passed over — for the rockstar Parisian pastry chef her almost-fiancé hired instead of promoting her. Four years of her life. One champagne bucket. One brand-new competitor with better hair.
So she does the most impulsive thing she has ever done in her thirty-one perfectly-piped years. She buys a ticket to Maple Lake. And five minutes after she walks into the town square, she throws ten dollars into what she thinks is a homeless man’s donation cup.
It is not a donation cup. It is a Colombian roast. And the man on the bench is most decidedly not homeless. He is the contractor her aunt and uncle just hired to renovate the family bakery — one quiet financial crisis away from closing for good.
Wes Donovan came home for two weeks. Long enough to meet his niece. Long enough to settle a few things at his family’s woodshop. Not long enough to fall for a New York pastry chef in a flour-smudged apron.
She’d been running toward somewhere she’d belong for ten years. He’d been running away from the only place he ever had.
Two plane tickets. Two weeks. And one Maple Lake bakery about to remind them both what home actually feels like.
Tropes you’ll love
Charlotte Montgomery thought she was getting engaged. She got passed over — for the rockstar Parisian pastry chef her almost-fiancé hired instead of promoting her. Four years of her life. One champagne bucket. One brand-new competitor with better hair.
So she does the most impulsive thing she has ever done in her thirty-one perfectly-piped years. She buys a ticket to Maple Lake. And five minutes after she walks into the town square, she throws ten dollars into what she thinks is a homeless man’s donation cup.
It is not a donation cup. It is a Colombian roast. And the man on the bench is most decidedly not homeless. He is the contractor her aunt and uncle just hired to renovate the family bakery — one quiet financial crisis away from closing for good.
Wes Donovan came home for two weeks. Long enough to meet his niece. Long enough to settle a few things at his family’s woodshop. Not long enough to fall for a New York pastry chef in a flour-smudged apron.
She’d been running toward somewhere she’d belong for ten years. He’d been running away from the only place he ever had.
Two plane tickets. Two weeks. And one Maple Lake bakery about to remind them both what home actually feels like.
Tropes you’ll love
- Forced collaboration
Mistaken-identity meet-cute
City girl × hometown hero
Family bakery on the brink
Pastry chef × woodworker (sweetness meets craftsmanship)
Slow-burn cozy fall faith-forward romance
From rising inspirational romance author Alyssa Schwarz, THE SWEETEST THING ABOUT YOU is the third novel in Falling for Flannel — Sunrise Publishing’s multi-author small-town romance series, set in Maple Lake, Minnesota. Perfect for readers of Becky Wade, Carla Laureano, Denise Hunter, Janine Rosche, and Susan May Warren.
Falling for Flannel — some stories are worth coming home for.
Genre: Inspirational