Hooked on You

Hooked on You is a 2021 romance novel written by Arkansas author Kathleen Fuller and published by Thomas Nelson, a subsidiary of HarperCollins Christian Publishing. It is the first book in the four-book Maple Falls Romance series. Fuller, an avid crocheter, was inspired to write the book by a visit to the Arkansas Yarn Co. store in Malvern (Hot Spring County), and Malvern is described in the book as “the closest large city to Maple Falls,” a fictional small town located near the Ouachita National Forest. 

Riley McAllister has been living for nine years in New York City, trying to make it as a mixed-media artist but having to make ends meet doing food delivery. One day, Erma Jean McAllister (aka Mimi), the grandmother who raised her after Riley’s mother, Tracey, abandoned Riley when she was thirteen, calls with news that she broke her leg playing softball and wants Riley to come back to Maple Falls, Arkansas, to run the yarn shop, Knots and Tangles, while she recuperates. Having vowed not to return home until she had become a success in the art world, Riley reluctantly agrees. 

Mimi arranges for Hayden Price to pick up Riley at the airport. Hayden played baseball in the major leagues but had to leave due to a shoulder injury and now works at his father’s hardware store and coaches the church softball team. As it happens, Riley had an immense crush on him in high school, and he used to find Riley fascinating. 

Riley takes to organizing the massive array of yarn in Knots and Tangles, which, along with the hardware shop, is one of the few surviving businesses on Main Street. Meanwhile, Mimi, hoping to have Riley back home permanently, connives to have her spend more time with Hayden, but Riley, despite being attracted to him, is initially resistant. Hayden’s own future is thrown into question when he learns his father plans to sell the hardware store. At the same time, Mimi also confesses to Riley her own hopes that the granddaughter would take over the shop but that she now intends to relieve Riley of the burden and put the shop on the market. However, after a visit from Lorri, a yarn store owner from Malvern, Riley starts to think about what it would take “to showcase the store’s potential.”  

Riley and Hayden start to grow closer, and they have dinner to discuss how best to revitalize their families’ respective stores and also the town, perhaps bringing back the Too Dang Hot Parade that was the town’s annual festival. Hayden confronts his parents with his wish to buy the store and learns that the same buyer had been purchasing other properties in downtown Maple Falls; he manages to convince his parents to sell him the store. Things are going better with Riley, but then Riley’s mother, Tracey, shows up, sending Riley into a downward spiral, and Riley tells Hayden she intends to leave.  

Tracey comes begging for money from Mimi, saying she is living in a court-ordered halfway house in Hot Springs (Garland County). She also reveals to Riley that Mimi had adopted her—and so Riley and Mimi are not blood relatives—and that Mimi had paid Tracey to leave long ago. Riley books a plane ticket for New York. Some friends hold an intervention, and she decides, after returning to New York to wrap up her life there, that she will return to Maple Falls. The epilogue opens three months later, with Knots and Tangles hosting its grand reopening—and Riley and Hayden planning to get married.  

For additional information:
“Book Review: Hooked on You by Kathleen Fuller.” Reviews from the Stacks, February 23, 2024. https://reviewsfromthestacks.wordpress.com/2024/02/23/book-review-hooked-on-you-by-kathleen-fuller/ (accessed April 15, 2025). 

Fuller, Kathleen. Hooked on You. Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, 2021. 

Kathleen Fuller. https://kathleenfuller.com/ (accessed April 15, 2025). 

Staff of the CALS Encyclopedia of Arkansas