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The Sugar Maple Summer

Book 2 in The Briar Glen series

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by Mary Ann Thursby

Some promises take a lifetime to fulfill. Others wait for the next generation to continue them. Claire Whitmore thought she had finally found the peaceful life she’d been searching for in the charming town of Briar Glen. Sugar Maple & Sage is thriving, her relationship with the steadfast carpenter Jonah Vale has grown into a love built on trust, and the new community cooking school is opening its doors. But when a stranger arrives carrying decades-old letters and a forgotten promise made between Claire’s beloved Aunt Mabel and another remarkable woman, the bakery’s history, and its future are forever changed. As hidden journals, family secrets, and long-lost friendships come to light, Claire discovers that the bakery was always meant to be more than a place to bake bread. Together with old friends, new neighbors, and a generation eager to learn what community truly means, she must finish a dream that began forty years earlier and prove that the strongest legacies are not inherited, they are shared. Filled with heartwarming friendships, slow-burn romance, family healing, memorable small-town characters, and the comforting magic of food bringing people together, The Sugar Maple Summer is an uplifting story about belonging, forgiveness, and the extraordinary power of ordinary kindness. If you love emotionally rich women’s fiction, later-in-life romance, charming small towns, found family, and stories that leave you smiling long after the final page, you’ll fall in love with The Sugar Maple Summer. Come back to Briar Glen and discover that every ending can become the beginning of something even more beautiful.

Publication date: July 2, 2026