A Hometown Kind of Love

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?

Falling for Flannel-some stories are worth coming home for.

Author: Janine Rosche
Publisher: Sunrise Publishing
Published: 10/06/2026
Pages: 278
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.65lbs
Size: 8.50h x 5.50w x 0.69d
ISBN: 9798950225079

About the Author
Rosche, Janine: - Janine Rosche is an ECPA bestselling and Selah Award-winning author of contemporary romance and women's fiction, utilizing her education in human development and family studies to bring together emotionally layered characters and poignant storylines that explore what it means to belong, forgive, and begin again. Her favorite part of her writing career is the opportunities it has created to connect with others and learn from their experiences across the United States, from the small towns along Route 66, through national parks and the Great Lakes, and deep into the heartland. When she isn't writing or traveling, she teaches family life education courses, takes too many pictures of her sleeping dogs, and embarrasses her husband and children with boy band serenades.For more information, visit her at janinerosche.com.