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

Make sure to like, subscribe, share, follow. And also do the same for Jessica here so you can keep track on what she's gonna work on next

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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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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

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Go and get The Gilded Butterfly. It is out on October 21st
Watch our full length episode if you haven’t yet

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A glittering sorority house. A basement ritual. Two girls trying to survive the performance. We dive into Heather Cawley’s Gilded Butterfly Effect with clear eyes and a full breakdown of why this debut hits like a bruise: parties that feel like auditions, therapy that feels like a pharmacy, and friendships that flare hot in a world built to look away.

We start with Stella, the curated “it” girl who micromanages pills and persona, and Penny, the outsider who wants to be seen so badly she mistakes attention for care. Their connection is electric and messy—equal parts comfort and misread—and it’s the fragile center of a story that asks how far you’ll go to feel safe in spaces designed for spectacle. Along the way we unpack the campus ecosystem: long counseling waitlists, parental posturing during football weekends, and the hush around hazing that reduces girls to proof. The pig roast isn’t just a plot device; it’s a map of power, consent, and the kind of loyalty that turns people into collateral.

Jack and Tripp anchor the spectrum of harm—the “nice” pledge with a soft voice and the golden boy who treats conquest as currency. We talk about complicity that hides in manners, why evidence disappears so easily, and how performative grief replaces accountability once the headlines fade. If you care about feminist fiction, campus novels, and the mechanics of coercion, this conversation goes deep: body image, drug culture, projection in therapy, and the ethics of silence when warning a friend might change everything.

We close with honest takeaways and a grounded 3.5 rating: not for shock value, but for the way this book names what too many institutions still stage-manage. If the episode resonates, tap follow, share it with a friend who loves sharp literary talk, and leave a quick review—what scene did you find hardest to forgive?

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Two readers share summer standouts—Grave Matter and the polarizing, unforgettable Still Beating—then build a desert island library that mixes epic fantasy, nostalgia, and pure fun. We weigh comfort against challenge and admit that sometimes the best survival tool is a giant series.
• mini-series intro and summer theme
• Grave Matter as standout emotional read
• Still Beating dark romance premise and ethical tension
• island rules: no phones, no limits, long stay
• Zodiac Academy for length and escapism
• Yarros tearjerker and Twilight nostalgia
• Throne of Glass as new long series to try
• Manacled fanfic and Ice Planet Barbarians for volume
• library trading, survival book joke, playful wrap
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What would you sacrifice to bring back someone you've lost? How far would you go to preserve a love that defies death itself? These are the questions at the heart of Corina Halley's mesmerizing psychological thriller, "Grave Matter."

When Sydney arrives at the remote Madrona Foundation on Vancouver Island, she's eager to participate in groundbreaking scientific research that could revolutionize treatments for neurological conditions like the Alzheimer's that took her grandmother. The isolation doesn't bother her – she's focused on the work and the opportunity to prove herself after losing her Stanford scholarship. But from the moment her fellow passenger Amani mysteriously vanishes upon arrival, Sydney senses something deeply wrong with the foundation.

The cult-like atmosphere becomes increasingly unsettling – surrendered phones, ironclad NDAs, and a disturbing mantra: "Don't try to change the lodge, let the lodge change you." When Sydney encounters Professor Wes Kincaid, the brooding lead researcher who also serves as the mandatory psychologist for all participants, their immediate attraction creates a dangerous complication. Their relationship evolves from tense therapy sessions to forbidden romance, all while Sydney experiences increasingly terrifying phenomena – visions of a girl hanging from a tree, a half-rotted wolf with a still-beating heart covered in fungus, and the persistent feeling that her reality keeps glitching.

The truth, when it finally emerges, is more horrifying than Sydney could have imagined. The Madrona Foundation's experiments with the mysterious "excandesco amanita" fungus aren't just about curing disease – they're about conquering death itself. And Sydney isn't experiencing these events for the first time; she died on the island and was brought back, her memories reset multiple times as part of an ongoing experiment orchestrated by the foundation's ruthless leaders.

As Sydney pieces together her fragmented reality and fights to expose the truth, she must decide if the love she's found with Wes is worth the terrible price they've both paid. Can something beautiful grow from such darkness? And when you've been rewritten by science that defies nature, can you ever truly trust yourself again?

Dive into this haunting tale of science gone wrong, the lingering power of memory, and a love that refuses to die. Your perception of reality will never be the same.

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What's more criminal in the book world – dog-earing pages or cracking spines? Would you abandon all fantasy books forever if it meant never having to read another detective novel? These are the tough questions we're tackling in our latest Book Bites episode!

We're playing a bookish version of "Would You Rather" that reveals surprising insights about our reading habits and preferences. From debating whether we'd rather read only books with ugly covers (but amazing writing) or gorgeous editions filled with terrible prose, to considering whether we'd survive better in a fantasy world without plumbing or a dystopian society where books are banned – our answers might surprise you!

The conversation takes amusing turns as we weigh the pros and cons of slow-burn romances versus insta-love, standalone novels versus series commitments, and whether we'd rather have an enemies-to-lovers story with no tension or a friends-to-lovers tale with zero chemistry. Our passionate reactions to certain scenarios (particularly around book care and unsatisfying endings) reveal just how deeply personal our relationships with books truly are.

This light-hearted episode offers a window into what readers value most in their literary experiences. Do we prioritize beautiful prose over plot? Would we sacrifice comfort for freedom? And why does the miscommunication trope drive us absolutely crazy? Join us for laughs, literary debates, and the revelation that some book preferences might actually be dealbreakers!

We'll be sharing these questions on our Instagram for you to weigh in with your own choices. Which side will you take in these bookish dilemmas? Let us know!

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We explore Hannah Bonman-Young's romance novel "Out of the Woods," a story about high school sweethearts Sarah and Caleb who attend a wilderness couples retreat to save their 16-year marriage after a fundraiser disaster reveals deeper relationship issues.

• Sarah experiences an identity crisis after feeling like Caleb always swoops in to fix her problems
• The "Reignite" couples retreat forces them to confront communication issues through hiking and exercises
• Sarah struggles with wanting independence while Caleb doesn't understand why his helping is problematic
• The couple works through Sarah's desire to have purpose beyond being a wife
• A dramatic accident forces both to reassess what truly matters in their relationship
• The epilogue shows both partners finding fulfillment—Sarah as a successful writer and Caleb redirecting his business toward charitable work
• Both characters maintain their decision to remain child-free throughout the story

Check out our mini-episode where we try some of the communication exercises from the book! Follow us on social media for more book discussions and recommendations.

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Editing done by Connor Luther @clfilms.co
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