A young woman crashes the wedding of the summer on Fire Island in search of her birth mother—and gets a whole lot more than she bargained for—in this warm, heart-stopping getaway from Jane L. Rosen.
Intrigued? Well read on to discover the synopsis and an excerpt from Jane L. Rosen’s Songs of Summer, which is out May 20th 2025.
Maggie May Wheeler is living her best life—at thirty, she has big plans for her vintage record shop and is about to be engaged to her childhood best friend. But when she stumbles across a letter she wrote to her future self when she was thirteen, she realizes it may not be enough. The letter ignites a desire to find her birth mother and discover where she really belongs.
Her search takes her to dreamy Fire Island, where her birth mother is a guest at a wedding. As Maggie spies on her biological family, she’s caught between diving into their chaotic lives and returning to her comfortable world. Things heat up when a charming local makes her an offer to crash the wedding as his date.
Is it the island’s magic, the whirlwind of the weekend, or the thrill of a fake beau that has her rethinking everything? Swept away by every love song she hears, Maggie must figure out where her heart truly lies.
“Should we say anything, or just open them?” Maggie asked, handing Jason his envelope.
“I don’t know. How about ‘Happy birthday, Maggie’? Whatever it says in here, I could not be happier with how things have turned out.”
He corrected himself, realizing that both her parents were gone. “How we have turned out, I mean.”
“Me too.” She leaned over and kissed him quickly on the lips.
“You go first,” she instructed him. “No, you go first!” he countered. “Odds or evens?”
He couldn’t help but laugh. “Odds.”
“Once, twice, three, shoot,” they sang in unison.
Jason held out three fingers and Maggie two. Maggie took the loss like a champ and began.
“Dear Old Maggie,”
“Old Maggie! That’s harsh,” she scolded her thirteen‑year‑old self before continuing.
“Happy thirtieth birthday! Congrats on being the Ohio State Lip Syncing champion six years in a row.”
“Is that even a thing?” Jason asked. “I don’t think so, but it should be!” Maggie continued:
“You live back over the record store with your husband, Justin Bieber.”
They both laughed.
“. . . and your twins. A boy and a girl. Joplin and Jagger.”
“Hmm. Those names are in now,” she bragged. “A trendsetter married to a pop star!”
“You run the store while your parents help care for the twins and we all still spend birthdays with Jason and his family.”
She looked up and smiled at him. “Finally—I thought you forgot about me.” “Never!”
Maggie’s face dropped as she looked at the next line. “What?” Jason asked. “What? Tell me, you have me married to one of those Spice Girls, Orange Spice, and now you’re uncontrollably jealous?”
“It’s Ginger Spice,” said Maggie. “When it comes to music, you may be the most clueless millennial on the planet . . . with a girlfriend who owns a record store, no less.”
“Oooh. You’re my girlfriend now? Is that an official confirmation?” He reached over and tickled her around her waist.
“Please, Jason, you know I’m your girlfriend.”
Maggie began folding her letter away, but Jason wasn’t having it.
“No way, Maggie. Read the rest.” She opened it back up.
“. . . and we all still spend birthdays with Jason and his family, and my birth mother, who I found when I was twenty and who is pretty great.”
“Wow,” said Jason. “You never even talk about your birth mother; do you think about her?”
Maggie took a deep cleansing breath before admitting, “Lately, every day.”
“Lately, every day?” Jason questioned, scooting closer, putting his arm around her. “Maybe you should talk about it. Or do something about it.”
“Maybe.” She took a beat, wiggling out from under his arm. “Read yours!” she said, while folding her letter back up, signaling a hard stop to the conversation. So Jason did as he was told.
“Dear Jason—”
“Yours is better already,” she interrupted with a smile.
“Congrats on being the youngest baseball player signed to the majors.”
Maggie smirked. Jason didn’t even make varsity ball in high school. He smiled, too, and proudly noted, “At least I was confident!”
His letter went on to talk about being captain of the debate team, which he had been, and going to his dad’s alma mater, Ohio State, for undergrad, which he did. And one thing that gave Maggie pause.
“There are pins covering your map!”
One wall of Jason’s childhood bedroom was covered in a map of the world. He had a constant itch to travel and discover new places, a sharp contrast to Maggie, who had little interest in venturing beyond Chagrin Falls. Aside from his travels his junior year abroad, Jason had yet to pin many spots. Her thoughts on the matter were interrupted by Jason’s seventeen‑year‑old postscript.
“P.S. I will be married to my best friend in the world, Maggie May Wheeler, and we will raise our family over Maggie May Records so they will grow up to be as cool as their mom.”
“Oh my God, Jason. That is the cutest thing!” She wiggled back under his arm.
“We should do it,” he said, just above a whisper. “Do what?” she asked.
“We should get engaged.” She slid back out, faced him. “Stop kidding around.”
“I’m not! Hear me out. If we come out as dating, my whole family, and possibly the entire town, will obsess over us getting married, like we’ve talked about. This way we cut them off at the chase! We can be engaged in peace without everyone speculating where it’s going.”
Maggie laughed. “A long engagement—it’s actually not a terrible idea.”
Jason spun around and reached down into the crag of the tree. He pulled out a Mad Libs filled with every expletive they had known at twelve, a purple Princess Diana Beanie Baby they had been convinced would be worth a small fortune one day (it wasn’t), and a mixed bag of plastic figurines from McDonald’s Happy Meals. He felt around in the dark to the corners until his hand grazed upon what he was looking for. He held it up like a prize, a small jewelry box that she immediately recognized.
“Remember these?”
“Of course I do. Our mood rings.”
Jason fumbled with the box and took one out. He got down on one knee, took a deep breath, and with a nervous expression asked:
“Maggie, I can’t imagine loving anyone more than I love you. Will you marry me?”
He slipped one of the mood rings on her finger and gave her an encouraging smile.
“I don’t know,” she said. “I was kind of hoping for a Ring Pop!”
He placed both hands on her face and looked into her eyes. “Maggie, I’m completely serious.”
“Jason. You can’t ask me to marry you because you predicted it when you were thirteen . . . or because it’s easier than telling your family we’ve been sleeping together!”
“That’s not why,” he insisted. “It’s always been you, and I want us to be family—officially and forever.”
His first attempt to take charge of the direction of their lives was certainly a humdinger. She loved Jason—of course she did—and couldn’t imagine life without him and his family. But they had said they were boyfriend and girlfriend for the first time only minutes ago. Now he was proposing! This was a leap she hadn’t anticipated, and she wasn’t much of a leaper.
“Give me a minute,” she said, as sweetly as she could. Jason’s face turned beet red. She hurried her thoughts, out of empathy for his obvious embarrassment. It turned out to be true that if Jason was cut, Maggie would bleed too.
“How about we secretly get engaged to be engaged?” she suggested.
“Until I can get you a proper diamond?”
“Well, that would be nice, but I need a little time to figure some things out before announcing it to the world.”
Now he looked dejected. She couldn’t take it and blurted out the softest thing that came to mind.
“I want to find my birth mother first,” she said, quickly realizing it was the truth. “It feels like a puzzle piece that’s missing. I can’t get married with a piece of me missing!” She smiled at him, hoping he would understand and smile back.
He did.
“I get it,” he said. “You want to know where you come from before you decide where you’re going.”
