We sit down with Jessica Everly to explore Roses in Rome, a tender, emotionally intelligent romance where grief, forgiveness, and agency shape a love story rooted in place. Rome becomes a mirror for healing as Joey and Sienna choose each other without cheap drama or shortcuts.

• choosing Rome as a living catalyst for Sienna’s healing
• why Joey is a steady, emotionally present hero
• alternative endings cut in development
• crafting Father Fiore as a true spiritual guide
• Giuseppe as the road not taken
• hospital and Pietà scenes as grief touchstones
• adoption and pregnancy as a full family arc
• the sister dynamic and learning to show up
• querying rejections and the self‑publishing pivot
• cover design choices and author process
• what Jessica is writing next

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Editing done by Connor Luther @clfilms.co
Music by @thundercatlouis
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A single bouquet sets off a chain of goosebumps. We dive into Roses in Rome by Jessica Everly, a clean romance that starts with coffee drops in a Chicago law office and ends with a hard-won happily ever after braided through grief, family lore, and the art of choosing each other again. We follow Sienna—shell-shocked by a career setback and a devastating miscarriage—as she flies to Rome with her mom, stumbles into a priest who sketches between Mass and metaphors, and slowly reclaims her voice with a pencil, a plaza, and a mystery: why did the family’s flower order jump from eleven roses to twelve?

We rewind the Chicago timeline that made us swoon: a desk coffee courtship, a street festival first dance, a museum date that blooms into a rose garden proposal. Then we sit with what comes next: shattered routines, resentment born from different grief clocks, and work as a refuge that becomes a wall. In Rome, the legend of florist Lorenzo and a string of annual bouquets leads to Dona’s journals and a truth that reframes everything—love can survive repeated loss when it’s marked, remembered, and shared. No love triangle bait here; Giuseppe is a mirror, not a detour, and the Vatican scenes remind us that art can hold what words can’t.

The Florida chapter is where courage shows up. Sienna knocks on Joey’s door to apologize, and what could have been melodrama turns into something braver: two people naming what hurt, what was missed, and what they still want. On a quiet boat ride, forgiveness lands. The epilogue pays it forward with adoption, a surprise pregnancy, and a bouquet that grows to thirteen roses—a living ledger of love, loss, and legacy. If you’re searching for second-chance romance, clean storytelling, healing after miscarriage, and a touch of travel and art, this one will leave you teary, hopeful, and texting a friend.

Listen now, rate five stars if you cried even once, and share your favorite clean romance that made you believe in second chances. Subscribe for more thoughtful book chats and fan casts that might just predict the next big adaptation.

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Editing done by Connor Luther @clfilms.co
Music by @thundercatlouis
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We talk with author Heather Coley about The Gilded Butterfly Effect, tracing how glamour, power, and campus mental health collide through the entwined voices of Stella and Penny. The conversation moves from craft to consequence, ending on the sharp note of a fate that feels earned and haunting.

• debut novel context and linked short stories
• crafting Stella’s voice and rapid interiority
• dual protagonists merging by design
• psychiatry, self-medication, and system failures
• writing drug scenes without glamorizing harm
• cyclical relapse risk and ambiguous endings
• blackout structure and tonal balance with humor
• moral ambiguity in romance and the Jack reveal
• classic literature influences and unhinged heroines
• dedication to dad, rejection, and persistence
• lessons for students about status and myth
• upcoming collection Public Property and where to follow Heather

Make sure to like, subscribe, share, follow
Go and get The Gilded Butterfly. It is out on October 21st
Watch our full length episode if you haven’t yet

Support the show

Editing done by Connor Luther @clfilms.co
Music by @thundercatlouis
Merch Here