Callum Haugen can fix anything. He just won’t talk about the things he can’t explain.
In Kettle Lake, Minnesota, everybody knows everybody, and nobody talks about the knack: the quiet, everyday magic that runs in certain families and gets politely ignored at coffee hour. Callum, a stoic carpenter raised on pot roast and Lutheran hymns, has spent thirty-four years keeping his hands steady and his head down. Then the town’s sunniest baker relights his late grandfather’s lantern with a touch, and the flame refuses to flicker in his hand.
Wren Ashby has lived in eleven towns and learned one lesson: be useful, be cheerful, and nobody will ask you to leave. Six years into Kettle Lake, she bakes for the whole town and has never once let it feed her back. When a runaway batch of bread at the church bake sale reveals that Callum can calm anything with a hum, Wren offers to teach him. He agrees on one condition. Nobody can know.
Late-night lessons in a warm bakery kitchen. A hearth brownie who speaks only in spoons. A sourdough starter with opinions. And a grumpy man slowly learning that a gift you never open isn’t any safer; it just goes stale in the box.
But a small town can be kind and nosy in the same breath, and Callum’s family has kept a secret about his grandmother for fifty years, one that could change everything he believes about faith, magic, and where he belongs.
The Second Rise is a cozy small-town fantasy romance about found family, second chances, and the courage to carry your light where everyone can see it. Perfect for readers who love:
For fans of…Garden Spells by Sarah Addison Allen: small-town food magic and family secrets
Legends & Lattes by Travis Baldree: cozy, low-stakes fantasy with a bakery and coffee shop heart
The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches by Sangu Mandanna: found family and a grumpy/sunshine romance
Practical Magic by Alice Hoffman: inherited magic and a town that whispers
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