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Sarah Henning plans for “Running Back to You,” her upcoming sports romance for young readers, to launch not with a whimper but with the bang of the starter pistol.
Fans will celebrate the book during a launch event at 7 p.m. Tuesday, Sept. 9, at the Raven Book Store, 809 Massachusetts St. Though no actual starter guns will be present, Henning will be in conversation with Jordan Rose, head track and field coach at Free State High School.
“Running Back to You” is an upper middle grade title geared toward 13- and 14-year-old readers. Despite high school freshman Millie’s strict honesty principles, she gets wrapped up in a lie about a first kiss that never happened. Millie and her best friend devise a plan for her to get the kiss by joining the track team, where, fingers crossed, she’ll woo her brother’s best friend, a long-distance runner. When she ends up on the hurdle team with a different boy she’s butted heads with, chaos ensues.
Henning grew up as a gymnast and distance runner in track and cross-country, before a career as a sports journalist morphed into a gig as a bestselling author. She gets the tangible reality of how sports shape kids’ lives — not the airbrushed fantasy we see in much teen fiction.
Molly Adams / Lawrence Times
“In a lot of teen romance, the jocks are stereotypical jocks,” Henning said. “They’re dumb, or it’s sort of like a means to an end for a kid to be really fit, you know, like boys to have washboard abs or whatever, because they play football. And then you never actually see them doing the sport, which is a big part of their lives. So I love on-the-page sports.”
Henning intentionally writes girls out on the field because they don’t often star as jocks in fiction. That’s been a “boys’ arena for so long,” she said. Readers will have a feast of sports writing featuring a female athlete in “Running Back to You” — so much so that Henning’s editor had to make some track scene cuts.
Henning has honed her scenes with an intensity she equates to writing a fight scene. As a runner herself, she understands that elements of the sport can become overly routine.
“Figuring out ways to make it not feel episodic or boring, especially when you’re doing repetitive things like hurdling — it’s a fun challenge,” Henning said.
Molly Adams / Lawrence Times Some of Henning’s books, displayed in her home office. Many of these titles feature teen girl main characters in sports.
When she started writing the book, her son was a 14-year-old track and field athlete. Henning would attend his meets and soak it all in, asking questions and taking notes. Ultimately, she called in a favor with Rose, a friend and neighbor, to provide early feedback on the book.
Rose said Henning strove to capture realism that kids would relate to, from realistic exercises for young athletes to a compelling storyline of female friendship. The FSHS teacher particularly appreciates a sports writer who can appeal to all of the senses, capturing the feel of the track off the starting blocks and the sound of the starter pistol.
“She (Henning) notices a lot of those little details … that I think when you’re incorporating some of that into your writing, I think it really puts the reader more into the scene,” Rose said.
Henning aims to draw in a particular audience: 13- and 14-year-olds who are largely absent from the bookshelves.
Most middle grade fiction, like her book “Monster Camp,” is meant for readers ages 8 to 12. Then the market jumps to young adult, where protagonists are often 16 or older, driving cars and applying to college.
First kisses, like the one in question in “Running Back to You,” might seem childish to an older teen or too mature for an 8-year-old bookworm. But for the 13 to 14 age group, “it’s a big deal,” Henning said. There’s a lack of titles that take that seriously.
The book’s age range designation isn’t precluding other readers from picking up the story, though. Rose is part of an FSHS teacher book club, and “Running Back to You” is their selection this semester.
“I was like, ‘Hey, guys, we have a Free State parent who wrote this book that talked about our track program,’” Rose said. “And it’s not called Free State, obviously, but there’s a lot of stuff in there that’s kind of hometowny.”
Lawrence readers, especially students at FSHS, might be rewarded by a particularly close reading of the book. They might even recognize the fictional school’s mascot.
“It’s not a Firebird, but we got Ernie the Eagle, might look a little like the Firebird,” Henning said, who mentioned that the fictional school yearbook is also called “The Wing.” Fans of Henning’s oeuvre may have noticed past Easter eggs, like a certain Coach Rose mentioned in “The Lies We Conjure,” a 2025 Kansas Notable Book.
Molly Adams / Lawrence Times
The author currently doesn’t plan to place a book in Lawrence due to tricky logistics — the wish fulfillment of having a 13-year-old character walk to a made-up putt putt course after school is too enticing. But living in this town has shaped her career indefinitely.
Local author titles Henning recommends
• “Blood Moon” by Britney S. Lewis: A paranormal YA romance from a Kansas City author featuring a Black girl lead in a classic vampire-werewolf love triangle. Coming Sept. 9
• “It Had to Be Him” by Adib Khorram: A queer second-chance romance for adults from a Kansas City author
• “Flirting with Murder” by Amanda Sellet: A funny and flirty cozy mystery for YA readers, set in a Florida retirement home. Coming April 21, 2026
Like authors Amanda Sellet and Tessa Gratton, Henning has found comfort in a stronghold of local writers banding together to weather national publishing trends. Not to mention, she loves the literary history of Lawrence, which played host to William Burroughs in his twilight years and saw the birth of Langston Hughes.
“Lawrence definitely bleeds into everything that I do,” Henning said.
For more information on the book launch for “Running Back to You,” see the event page here.
At the event, Henning will have a giveaway for an Ad Astra Running gift card for people who preordered the book.
Folks who preorder through the Raven by the end of Monday, Sept. 8 will get a signed and personalized copy as well as a broadside made by a Raven bookseller.
Molly Adams / Lawrence Times
Molly Adams / Lawrence Times Dash
Molly Adams / Lawrence Times Pearl
Molly Adams / Lawrence Times
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Wulfe Wulfemeyer (they/them), community reporter, has worked with The Lawrence Times since May 2025. They can be reached at wulfe@lawrencekstimes.com.
Read their complete bio here. Read their work for the Times here.
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