Two to Tango

Two to Tango is a 2023 romance novel written by Kathleen Fuller and published by Thomas Nelson, a division of HarperCollins Christian Publishing. It is the fourth and final book in the Maple Falls Romance series set in the fictional community of Maple Falls, Arkansas, which is located in the Ouachita Mountains. This installment focuses on the relationship between Olivia Farnsworth, who is head of the local library, and Kingston Bedford, a pediatrician and brother to Anita Bedford, the main character of Much Ado about a Latte.

The novel opens with a prologue in which Olivia and Kingston meet by happenstance at a showing of The Quiet Man at the Sunset Theater. They have a cup of tea afterward and end up kissing. He asks her out. However, Kingston’s life gets subsumed by work, and he never calls her, so that by the time of Anita and Tanner Castillo’s wedding around eight months later (they both have parts in the wedding), Olivia is irate with him. He apologizes and talks her into another date. However, once again, he fails to call her, and the plot advances to one year later.

Olivia feels increasingly at the margins of her friend group (all of whom are married); too, Anita Bedford and Harper Wilson (the latter from the previous book, Sold on Love) are both pregnant. Seeking a way out of her routine, Olivia signs up for a ballroom dancing lesson. Meanwhile, the chief pediatrician at Kingston’s practice, seeing that he is over-extended, orders him away for a two-month sabbatical, and he ends up at the same dance class as Olivia. She is incensed that he apparently has time for dancing but none for her, but he later explains, in confidence, about his forced sabbatical. Olivia’s Aunt Bea, seeing them together, begins a campaign of matchmaking, roping in her other friends and Kingston’s mother, Karen.

Learning this, Kingston proposes that he and Olivia pretend to be a couple for a few weeks, but word quickly gets out, and Olivia cannot deal with the stress of lying to her family and friends. He admits his feelings to her, but he cannot promise that his work will not take priority over her when his sabbatical ends, and so they decide to expedite their break-up. Wanting, too, to get away from his overbearing mother, Kingston makes the sudden decision to stop his dance classes and fly to Fiji, and he tells Olivia his plans.

However, the night before he is supposed to fly to Fiji, she shows up at his condominium in Malvern (Hot Spring County) and confesses her feelings for him. Kingston responds, “But you deserve to be with someone who has his act together. I don’t. I like to pretend I do, and I’ve put on a good show all these years. But the real me is still a mess.” Five weeks later, at the dance recital, Olivia receives a note inviting her to the Sunset Cinema, where she finds Kingston waiting for her. He tells her that, after much thought, he has scaled back his workload and taken a different job with the Garland County Department of Health in order to focus upon what he enjoys, and to make more time for her. She decides to take a chance on him, and The Quiet Man begins to screen. The epilogue finds them married one year later.

For additional information:
Fuller, Kathleen. Two to Tango. Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, 2023.

Kathleen Fuller. https://kathleenfuller.com/ (accessed June 18, 2025).

Staff of the CALS Encyclopedia of Arkansas