Colton Gentry’s Third Act

In this swoon-worthy romance, the adult debut from YA author Zentner (In the Wild Light), a country singer-songwriter’s life falls apart in the wake of a mass shooting. It’s 2015 and B-list performer Colton Gentry, 38, is finally on the rise with a popular song about his high school girlfriend, Luann, which he wrote while his marriage to superstar Maisy Martin began to flounder. After his best friend is killed during a mass shooting, Colton speaks out against rampant gun ownership, and angry gun-toting country music fans make him a pariah. Drunk during a show, Colton responds to a group of hecklers who call him a “libtard” with one career-ending sentence: “fuck you and your guns.” Maisy, who’s already having an affair with a hockey player, divorces Colton, and he returns from Nashville to his hometown in Kentucky, remembering all the previous ways he messed up his life from drinking, starting with Luann. The two reconnect, and Colton accepts her offer to work at her farm-to-table restaurant as her sous-chef. Zentner gets the reader rooting for Colton to find his second chance with Luann by developing their tender teen love story through flashbacks—in one, set during Christmas 1996, Luann gives Colton a leather guitar strap and he gives her a bonsai tree, “like Mr. Miyagi had in Karate Kid.” Fans of wholesome Americana will lap this up. Agent: Charlie Olsen, InkWell Management. (Apr.)