Much Ado About a Latte

Much Ado About a Latte is a 2022 romance novel written by Arkansas author Kathleen Fuller and published by Thomas Nelson, a subsidiary of HarperCollins Christian Publishing. It is the second book in the four-book Maple Falls Romance series, following Hooked on You (2021). The title is a play on William Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing. The books in the series are set in Maple Falls, Arkansas, a fictional small town located near the Ouachita National Forest. 

The book opens with Anita Bedford, sixteen years old, secretly attending a party held by her high school crush, Tanner Castillo. The plot then jumps forward ten years and Anita is a waitress at the Sunshine Diner, where Tanner works as assistant manager and main cook. To try to break things off permanently with his ex-girlfriend, Heather, Tanner tells her that he is dating Anita. However, Anita, having suffered “the longest case of futile infatuation in the universe” for Tanner, decides to buy the deserted building next door to the diner, planning to establish a café. Meanwhile, Tanner, learning that George, the owner of the Sunshine Diner, plans to sell, offers to buy it from him, having been saving money for exactly this purpose. Neither know of the other’s plans, which are complicated by their continuing unstated attraction to each other, especially after they pretend to be a couple to drive off Heather—even kissing in front of her. 

At the mayor’s bimonthly business leaders’ meeting, Anita and Tanner finally learn that they have ended up owning ostensibly competing businesses. Tanner, who had just ordered equipment for improving the quality of the coffee at the Sunshine Diner, is incensed: “His livelihood was at stake, and he didn’t know if he could save it.” He shows up at her house, begging her to reconsider opening the café, but she refuses, and Tanner fires her.  

Anita tries to get the building renovated but is having financial problems and other difficulties. She confides to Erma Jean McAllister (aka Mimi), Riley’s grandmother (introduced in Hooked on You), who urges her to bring some friends on the project—and to talk to Tanner. However, Tanner’s overworked mother, Rosa, collapses from what is later determined to be an unstable angina (a heart issue). As it happens, Anita is having dinner with her father, a doctor, at the hospital in Hot Springs (Garland County) and is there to comfort Tanner when he arrives right after the ambulance. Her mother recovers and makes Tanner promise to work things out with Anita. At the wedding of Riley and Hayden (the main couple of Hooked on You), Anita and Tanner confess their love to each other and decide on a plan to cooperate in their respective businesses. An epilogue set three months later finds Tanner proposing to Anita at the Sunshine Café, set to open the following day. 

For additional information:
“Book Review: Much Ado About a Latte by Kathleen Fuller.” Reviews from the Stacks, September 14, 2024. https://reviewsfromthestacks.wordpress.com/2024/09/14/book-review-much-ado-about-a-latte-by-kathleen-fuller/ (accessed April 15, 2025). 

Fuller, Kathleen. Much Ado About a Latte. Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, 2022. 

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

Staff of the CALS Encyclopedia of Arkansas