The wait is finally over. After several years’ absence, When Hope Calls, the spinoff series to the wildly popular When Calls The Heart, is back on television. The second full season will air on Sundays on its new television home, Great American Family. 

When Hope Calls expands the world originally created in When Calls the Heart, based on the novels by Janette Oke. This spinoff series centers around the lives of sisters Lillian (Morgan Kohan) and Grace (Jocelyn Hudon) who were separated as children when their parents died. Both were placed in orphanages but only Lillian was adopted. As adults, the two reunite and move to Brookfield to start their own orphanage. 

The series originally aired on Hallmark’s streaming service premiering in 2019, before being cancelled after only one season. But Great American Family picked it up,  and after over a year’s wait, they gifted fans with a two-part Christmas special called When Hope Calls: A Country Christmas in December of 2021. 

Finally, after several more years of hoping, fans are finally getting to return to Brookfield. And while many familiar faces return, new characters are also moving into town, including Nora, played by Cindy Busby. 

“I’ve always known about the Hearties fandom but I feel like I wasn’t totally aware of the Hopefuls fandom and how long they’ve waited for this. And how excited they are to have it return,” Busby told Southern Living.

“They’ve waited long enough! Let’s give the people what they want,” she added. 

We pick back up in Brookfield in 1916 as Lillian is preparing to go help her sister Grace in England through her pregnancy, leaving behind the orphanage and the children under her care, as well as the man she loves, Mountie Gabriel, who has also been called away on assignment. The two continue to show their dedication to one another through letters. With Gabriel away, a new Mountie comes to town, Mountie Michael Fletcher played by Christopher Russell. Another new arrival to town, a lawyer (played by Busby) arrives with a big secret. Watch the trailer below:

“One of the things that really caught my eye with Nora,” Busby explained, “to play a woman that is so ahead of her time, and so strong, so smart, and so loving. And all of the things that we love about women. They are capable of being all the things. And I really loved being able to bring the multi-faceted aspect to her, in what was a simpler time. However it was also a challenging time in a lot of ways. Things weren’t as easy.”

Portraying a character from 1916 means that not only were the situations of a different era, but so too were the costumes. 

“Honestly I would say the only thing that was uncomfortable were the shoes,” Busby said with a laugh. With a nod to the costume department’s commitment to authenticity, she pointed out that to be true to what shoes were like in the early 1900s, the leather was very thin. 

“It was a lot of freezing toes.. I couldn’t help but think of people back then and think, oh gosh were their toes this cold all the time?”

When Hope Calls is a return to series television for the Canadian-born actress who also starred in another series with a very dedicated fanbase, Heartland. “A series is where my heart is all the time. It’s something I’ve really wanted to get back to for a really long time,” she told us. 

“There’s something really special about getting to create a character that is more than just the 90 minutes sort of classic movie which is great, but the experience through the character is a little more heightened, the journey happens a lot quicker. But with a series you can really dig deep into a character and have so many different experiences to be able to share more about them. You get to show deeper layers to the characters and why they are the way they are. I really like that aspect of being able to explore a person on a deeper level through different experiences.”

She added, “I really hope that I’m able to continue to explore her for years to come, fingers crossed.”

Season 2 of When Hope Calls premieres on Great American Family Sunday April 6 and will also be streaming on Great American Pure Flix.