Maddie Evans Books in Order
Explore Maddie Evans books in order, with quick summaries, series guides, and easy starting points for her sweet small-town and contemporary romances.
Last updated: July 1, 2026
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Publication Order
24 books
A 5K and a Kiss
by Maddie Evans
2019
After her sister's sudden death, Aileen agrees to train for a memorial 5K in Brighthead, Maine. The miles she spends with easygoing Trey start to feel like healing, but grief and fear still make love hard to trust.
A Relay and a Reunion
by Maddie Evans
2019
A reunion in Brighthead brings old history back to the surface just as a relay race forces two people into close contact again. Shared memories, town interference, and unresolved feelings make this second chance hard to outrun.
A Tease and a Trail Run
by Maddie Evans
2019
Fleeing a broken engagement, Charlotte hides out in Brighthead and reconnects with Brandon, the gardener's son she knew from childhood summers. As trail-run training and old memories pull them together, class differences and unfinished past hurts get in the way.
Mischief and a Marathon
by Maddie Evans
2019
Another Brighthead romance pairs marathon miles with small-town chaos, family pressure, and a growing attraction that is harder to dodge with every run. The pace is sweet, funny, and full of the series' close-knit community spirit.
Faking the Harmony
by Maddie Evans
2020
Rose agrees to bring jazz pianist Declan as her fake date to her ex's wedding, only to discover old humiliation still stings and old chemistry still burns. Pretending is easy at first. Telling the truth is the risky part.
Finish Lines and Forevermores
by Maddie Evans
2020
The Brighthead series closes with romance, forgiveness, and the kind of loyalty that asks people to face what they have avoided. Family strain and old betrayals raise the stakes, but so does the hope of a future that finally feels steady.
Heart of the Violist
by Maddie Evans
2020
Violist Ashlyn has finally built a stable life with the Castletons when Michael arrives with DNA results that suggest he may be part of the family. Their growing connection deepens a mystery about identity, trust, and where home really is.
Highway of the Heart
by Maddie Evans
2020
Casey rolls into Sweet Grove ready to leave again, then meets Peter while helping rescue a litter of abandoned puppies. She lives by instinct and motion, he lives by plans, and both are about to learn that attraction can be its own kind of risk.
Rules of the Rails
by Maddie Evans
2020
Casey returns to Sweet Grove for one last week before everything changes, but a family emergency throws Peter's plans into chaos. With the whistle of the freight trains always nearby, love starts to look a lot like a choice to stay.
Matchmaking the Midwife
by Maddie Evans
2021
Widowed midwife Ella is rebuilding her life in Hartwell, Maine when a heavily pregnant patient decides to set her up with her cautious single father, Adam. New babies, old grief, and a small-town push toward love all complicate the plan.
Meeting Up with the Mason
by Maddie Evans
2021
Alyssa thinks she has found the right contractor for a Cape Cod vacation home's stone walkway, but the man who shows up is a PhD student learning on the fly. With a storm coming and time running short, attraction starts to feel very real.
Soul of the Cellist
by Maddie Evans
2021
When cellist Hannah discovers her controlling stepfather has been tracking her, her life falls apart in days. With her younger brother depending on her, she turns to old friends and to Enrique, the longtime crush who may finally be worth trusting.
Spirit of the Violinists
by Maddie Evans
2021
First violinist Lindsey is trying to keep her quartet together when disaster and conflict inside the group threaten everything they have built. The music matters, but so do the relationships fraying behind the scenes.
Beach Wedding on the Rocks
by Maddie Evans
2022
Years after a cruel prank broke them apart, Elsie and Noah reunite for a beach wedding in Maine and decide a little revenge is in order. Their prank war is funny, but the old feelings under it are harder to laugh off.
Drake
by Maddie Evans
2022
Drake chose military service and dangerous underwater welding to escape the insecurity of his childhood. Falling for Sunita, a widow who knows exactly what that danger can cost, forces both of them to decide whether love is worth the risk.
Game On Snacks: Last Man Standing Companion Cookbook
by Maddie Evans
2022
This companion cookbook offers snack and party-food recipes inspired by the Last Man Standing world. It is a fun extra for readers who want something light, practical, and series-adjacent between romances.
Time Capsule
by Maddie Evans
2022
A bag recovered from the rig gives Sunita one last link to her late husband, then reveals a betrayal she never expected. The discovery shakes her fragile peace with Drake and turns grief into a new test of trust.
Cara
by Maddie Evans
2023
Cara has worked hard for her independence and has no interest in becoming anyone else's project again. When love reenters the picture, she has to decide whether this time she can be wanted for who she is, not who someone wants her to be.
A Wood-Fired Christmas
by Maddie Evans
2024
Ezra has practically run the local pizzeria for years, so the arrival of new owner Lacey and her big plans lands badly. Holiday parties, hot ovens, and forced cooperation make their Christmas friction impossible to ignore.
Hooked on the Heart
by Maddie Evans
2025
Natalie starts teaching her sarcastic new neighbor how to cook, never realizing he owns the restaurant she just mocked. Their banter is fun, the food is tempting, and the small lie between them keeps getting harder to ignore.
Love by Design
by Maddie Evans
2025
The final Crafted with Love romance returns to Brighthead's circle of makers and artists, where careful plans, creative work, and unexpected feelings collide. It is a cozy small-town story about building a future that is both practical and personal.
Love by the Slice
by Maddie Evans
2025
Shelly's quiet crush on Greg gets complicated fast after a New Year's Eve kiss, especially since he is both her boss and her brother's close friend. Helping a struggling kid together only makes their feelings harder to deny.
Operation Christmas Ring
by Maddie Evans
2025
When a Navy engineer's undersea robot finds dog tags and a wedding ring, he teams up with an archivist to return them to the right family by Christmas. Their search turns into a gentle romance about memory, service, and second chances.
Palette of the Soul
by Maddie Evans
2025
Yarn dyer Lilah tries to spark a romance between her grieving friend Brooke and painter Emerson Charles. Instead, the more time she spends helping him, the harder it is to deny that the real match may be the one she never planned.
Where should I start?
If you want small-town running romances: A 5K and a Kiss → A Tease and a Trail Run → Mischief and a Marathon
If you like music, family secrets, and found family: Heart of the Violist → Soul of the Cellist → Spirit of the Violinists
If you want a short, heartfelt romance: Matchmaking the Midwife → Beach Wedding on the Rocks → Operation Christmas Ring
If cozy food-and-craft romance sounds best: Hooked on the Heart → Palette of the Soul → Love by Design
Author bio
Maddie Evans writes sweet contemporary romance about ordinary people doing their best, making mistakes, and finding love in the middle of real life. She has described herself as a slightly offbeat romantic who believes in hard work and love, and that outlook fits her fiction perfectly. Her books tend to be warm, grounded, and full of people who have jobs to do, family to care for, and a heart that is a little more complicated than they first admit.
Movement matters in her stories.
Evans is a runner and biker, and she has lived in three New England states for more than two decades. She lives in New England with her family and tropical fish, and those details are not just fun trivia. You can feel them in the books. Her characters run, hike, cook, rehearse, build things, and keep moving even when life gets messy. The weather, the coastline, the small-town rhythms, and the practical details of daily life all help give her romances a lived-in feel.
A good place to see that is The Brighthead Running Club Romances, which begins with A 5K and a Kiss. Set in coastal Maine, those books mix romance with grief, healing, friendship, and the kind of community that knows everyone else's business but still shows up when it counts. The running club gives the series its energy, but the real draw is how Evans uses training runs, races, and town events to bring very different people together.
Her musicians fall in love with the same intensity they bring to rehearsal.
In Heart of the Violist, Soul of the Cellist, and Spirit of the Violinists, Evans shifts into the world of chamber music. The Castleton books are still romances, but they also dig into family history, trust, belonging, and the strange mix of discipline and vulnerability that comes with performing. She writes musicians as working people, not decorative geniuses, and that plainspoken approach makes the emotional stakes feel stronger.
Her other books show the same range within a clean, contemporary style. Matchmaking the Midwife brings together a widowed midwife and a single dad through a pregnancy that needs extra care. Drake adds a more dangerous setting, with underwater welders and the risks that come with that work. Operation Christmas Ring folds military history, genealogy, and a Christmas deadline into a short romance that connects past and present.
More recently, Evans has returned to Brighthead with the Crafted with Love books, including Hooked on the Heart and Palette of the Soul. These stories center on makers and artists, a yarn shop, food, color, and creative work. They keep her usual interest in community, but they also lean into cozy details without losing sight of the emotional core.
Readers who pick up a Maddie Evans book can expect brisk dialogue, kind but imperfect characters, and love stories that stay rooted in work, family, and place. Her settings are often coastal or small-town, her romances are sweet rather than flashy, and her characters usually have something practical to do while they figure out their feelings.
And when she is not writing about all that, she is still the same New England runner and biker who likes yarn and keeps tropical fish. That mix of motion, humor, craft, and heart is a pretty good guide to her fiction too.
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