About the Book

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!

About the Author

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 a 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 passe 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 ends 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.

Author Interview

Can you share 5 random facts about this book?

I worked in the layaway department at a local discount store way back in the day. So I based some of my info on that experience.
I actually ate in the T-Way snack bar on more than one occasion—whenever me and my sibs could convince our dad we were starving while there shopping.
I always loved the song, “Pieces of April,” but knew it couldn’t be turned into an ordinary love story. Then the idea of an amnesia story hit me, and it made sense in my brain.
It was originally a story about a young married couple. He’s overwhelmed with work, she feels neglected. One missed dinner too many and she decides to make him stop taking her for granted. She gets her long blonde hair cut into a shoulder length brown pageboy. Now he is angry and storms off to work only to slip on the ice and have amnesia. When he learns that this is his wife, she has brown hair, but the girl in his flashes of memory has long blonde hair. Is she who she says she is? Or has he been cheating on her? He questions everything.
But the story wasn’t happening, so I had to start over—more than once—but when I finally found the right April, the pieces came together.

What was the inspiration behind it?

Back in the day, Three Dog Night recorded the song “Pieces of April.” It’s almost a haunting melody and definitely different than “Mama Told Me Not to Come.” I always loved Chuck Negron’s voice on it, but then I came across Dave Loggin’s version. He’s the one who wrote it. It is a totally different vibe, and still beautiful. Here are YouTube links to both versions.

https://youtu.be/Fd1rYLcteYg?si=18ejJ_yDFrf5fNJ3 (Three Dog Night)

https://youtu.be/lKYwKn-hSTU?si=MLvKHdpYCNWLZdKS (Dave Loggins)

Can you share something interesting or surprising you learned while researching for the book?

I went looking for what the song meant and discovered Dave Loggins had answered that question. Sadly, he passed away before I could contact him—it was said he answered all who did. Here’s what he wrote:

I would like to thank everyone for their kind thoughts on "Pieces." I wrote it at a very special time of my life. Special, because I met the "love of my life" and had recently lost her. By chance, we were together for three consecutive Aprils and then she left me for good. Today, I don't know where she is or how her life turned out. May is symbolic of the present, April was, and still remains a sweet yesterday. I have never really gotten over "April" and the "pieces" still remain. Those sweet Aprils... It's my favorite song, too.

- Dave Loggins (composer)

What do you hope readers will take away from the book?

My prayer is that the need to offer forgiveness resounds in hearts. I learned from a dear friend who is a grief counselor that we can apologize but shouldn’t ask for forgiveness. Instead, allow the Holy Spirit to do His work. We can only offer our apology and do what we can to make things right. But asking for forgiveness can put the offended person in a difficult position. What if they aren’t ready to forgive? What if the asking is met with a lie? So, knowing that, I didn’t have April ask for forgiveness. Instead, she prayed for it and as Holy Spirit made hearts tender, she received it. Plus, knowing how it felt to not be forgiven, she could choose to forgive. Jesus is clear in Matthew 6:14-15 that the result of unforgiveness is harsh. That’s not to say forgiving is easy, but working toward that end and relying on the Holy Spirit to heal our hearts will get us closer to being the people God has called us to be.

Thank you for taking the time to answer my questions. Before you go, where can readers keep up with what’s next?

The easiest way to keep up with me is on my website: jenniferlynncary.com

I have links to all my social media there plus, if you sign up for my newsletter, I have a free novella for you—one that is close to my heart. Hope to see you there.

Thank you, Randi, for this interview.