Just Another Love Song

July 1, 2022

The last person garden shop owner Sandy Macintosh expects to run into at the grocery store is Hank Tillman, her high school sweetheart who left their small Ohio town to make it big in the country music world. Sandy, who loved to paint, couldn't afford to leave, which led her to break up with Hank so she wouldn't hold him back. Now Sandy is running into Hank all over town. The two agree to be friends so they can team up to solicit donations for the town's street fair. Their attraction is palpable, and staying just friends can't last for long, especially when Hank's performance includes a new original song about the woman he lost years ago. When Hank's ex-wife shows up, wanting to reconnect with Hank and the son they share, Sandy again is caught between doing what she thinks is best for Hank and following her heart. VERDICT Winfrey's (Very Sincerely Yours) sweet, low-heat read, with endearing and humorous characters and small-town setting, will appeal to fans of Candis Terry and Victoria James.--Kara Kohn

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Starred review from June 15, 2022
A small-town gardener with big dreams reunites with her ex-boyfriend, a famous alt-country singer, in this sweet second-chance romance. Sandy Macintosh imagined hundreds of different scenarios in which she'd run into her ex-boyfriend Hank Tillman, but being covered in dirt in the soda aisle of her local grocery store wasn't one of them. The last time she'd seen him was eight years ago...with his new wife. Before Hank was a married country-music star, he and Sandy were high school sweethearts, bonding over a desire to venture beyond their small town of Baileyville, Ohio. An aspiring artist, Sandy hoped to follow Hank to college in Massachusetts, until a scholarship mishap forced her to attend a local community college. Fearing that she would hold him back from his big break, Sandy ended things and has stayed in Baileyville ever since: "I've been letting my roots grow deeper and deeper here in town, so deep that they're now all tangled and gnarled far below the surface." For the past 16 years, Sandy has worked hard to make peace with the life she was given, buying her own greenhouse and developing a knack for gardening. But seeing Hank--who's now divorced and thinking about moving back home--threatens the fragile surface of her contentment, and when he volunteers to help Sandy raise funds for the Baileyville Street Fair, she can't help but wonder if she could finally allow herself the happiness she deserves. Winfrey's romance is sweet as honey, and Sandy's long-awaited journey to living out her dreams is touching and gratifying. Better yet, Hank is the quintessential kindhearted golden boy: "His eyes showed me everything I loved about Baileyville and everything I dreamed about in the outside world....Those blue-gray irises sparkled with the gently swaying flowers of my present and the skyscrapers of my dreams." With hilarious best friends like Honey and Shelby and memorable oddities like Hotpants Ed, Sandy and Hank's quaint country town feels larger than life. A warm, heartfelt novel that'll get stuck in your head like your favorite love song.

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