Celebrate Lit / April 29, 2026

Pieces of April

About the Book Pieces of April

Book: Pieces of April: A Sweet, Quirky, Romantic Puzzle

Author: Jennifer Lynn Cary

Genre: Sweet, Clean Romantic Comedy

Release Date: January 20, 2026

She’s trying to move beyond her past…

…He wants to know who he was.

Will combining their pieces risk erasing their future together?

April Mathers wants to move forward. She can’t undo her impulsive high school blunder, so she keeps her head down, works hard, and prays for that long-awaited promotion. She’s cautious—even about the friends she chooses.

Then her next-door neighbor sublets her apartment to the one person capable of blowing up April’s world by repeating words that once shattered her.

Except he doesn’t remember saying them.

In fact, he doesn’t remember her.

Viet Nam vet Paul Romer has returned home, hoping a support group can help him make peace with his permanent amnesia. All he has from before are flashes of a girl.

Then he finds her.
She lives next door.
And she definitely knows something—something not good.

Their chemistry is real, the tension tangled, and the secret between them is as stable as six-inch platform shoes. When the truth comes out, will it destroy their fragile beginning or give them a future worth remembering?

Return to 1974 Kokomo, Indiana, where faith, love, and a legendary cardinal in a sycamore tree might fit the pieces into place.

You’ll swoon for this sweet, quirky, romantic tale of second chances, because sometimes sharing all those pieces of your heart is the only way to put it back together.

Click here to get your copy!

My Thoughts on Pieces of April

Pieces of April is a wonderful story from an author you need to binge-read. It’s historical fiction, but in more of a modern sense. As in before I was born, but not that long ago, really. We’re talking Vietnam War era.

Paul is home from war. But he’s got amnesia. He remembers nothing about his life. He just gets little snippets of a girl. He doesn’t know who she is or what she has to do with him, but he wants to find out. His life is calling to him, and he wants to find out who he was or rather is.

April is just trying to survive. Trying to move forward with her life. Really trying to outlive what she considers her big mistake, her blunder. But then Paul moves in next to her, and she can’t hide anymore.

Moving next to April shows Paul who the girl he remembers is, but he still doesn’t know who she is to him, if that makes sense. He’s identified the face in his memories, but now he has to figure out why she’s there and what she is to him. Meanwhile, April just wants it all to stay buried.

I really enjoy this author and her series. I knew when I grabbed this book that it was going to be amazing. And it did not disappoint. You’re going to love Paul and April and watching them figure out their story. The book focuses on forgiveness, both for ourselves and for others.

I have voluntarily reviewed a complimentary copy of this book, which I received from Celebrate Lit. All views expressed are only my honest opinion. I was not required to write a positive review, nor was I compensated in any other way. All opinions expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the FTC regulations.

About the Author of Pieces of April

Historical Christian Romance author and three-time Selah Award nominee, Jennifer Lynn Cary, likes to say you can take the girl out of Indiana, but you can’t take the Hoosier out of the girl. Now transplanted to the Arizona desert, this direct descendant of Davy Crockett and her husband of forty-plus years enjoy time with family where she shares tales of her small-town heritage and family legacies with their grandchildren.

She is the author of The Crockett Chronicles series, The Relentless series, and The Weather Girls trilogy, as well as the stand-alone novel, Cheryl’s Going Home, her novella Tales of the Hob Nob Annex Café, and her split-time novels The Traveling Prayer Shawl and The Forgotten Gratitude Journal. Her current spin-off series, The Weather Girls Wedding Shoppe and Venue, contains standalones with a common thread.

More from Jennifer

Ever have one of those songs that you’ve loved for a long time, and then you discover someone else covered the song? As a general rule, I tend to like the first version better. It’s familiar and often brings up good memories.

However, (you knew there was an however coming, right?) I discovered a different version of “Pieces of April” solely by accident. And it was done by the guy who wrote the song, Dave Loggins. Three Dog Night’s version is great. Chuck Negron did some of his best work on that track. But Dave Loggins’s version touched me in a new way.

So, I did some investigating.

For one thing, I wanted to know what the song was about. Was there really an April? Or was it just a play on words?

Turns out, there was an April. And that Dave Loggins enjoyed interacting with fans online. So he’d written that he and April (the girlfriend) had a relationship for three Aprils (meaning the month) before they broke up. He missed her and wrote the song for her, and it was one of his favorites that he’d written.

However, (you should’ve known this one was coming 😉) Dave passed away in 2024, so I didn’t get to ask him any more questions.

As I was putting this series together, I listed all the rock and roll songs I could think of from 1960 to the early 1970s that had girls’ names in the titles. Then I grouped them for similarity in beat and title words.

When I came to “Pieces of April”, I immediately knew it would have to be an amnesia story.

I started it out as a young married couple who ended up going through this, but it wasn’t working. I struggled a lot trying to rework what I’d been musing on for months, and the funny thing is, once I got past chapter five, things started happening. I’m not a plotter, but I’m not a pure pansters/discovery writer either. But this book was a lot of discovery for me, and how the threads all got tied up, that’s a God thing.