Love Letters and Books

Regency romance author J.M. Zamudio returns to the Love Letters and Books podcast to discuss Promises Between Us, book two in the Cooper Sibling Scandals trilogy, available on Amazon and Kindle Unlimited. Picking up directly after Memories of You, the story shifts to Matthew Cooper and Lady Jasmine, whose explosive second-chance romance explores shared power, trust, and agency amid restrictive soc...

Author Bailey Hannah returns to the Love Letters and Books podcast to discuss Love Wells Kept, the fifth and final book in her Wells Ranch series, an interconnected set of cowboy romance standalones about three brothers and ranch hands finding love. The new book follows Jackson, the middle brother, and his wife Kate—an established couple seen throughout the first four books—after Jackson suffers a...

Small-town romance author Katherine Bitner returns to the Love Letters and Books podcast to discuss Between the Lines, the third and final standalone contemporary romance in her Hometown series, releasing June 24, 2026. Set by the beach in Wilmington, North Carolina, the book delivers immersive East Coast summer nostalgia while following Fia, a 22-year-old single mom, and Caden Brooks, her wealthy...

Author Raya Morris Edwards returns to the Love Letters and Books podcast to discuss her July 3 release, Hit the Road, Cowboy: A Cowboy Romance About Country Music. This is a cowboy romance centered on creative burnout: a country songwriter-producer, a workaholic “Jack Antonoff of country,” is sent by his agent to a remote Wyoming ranch where he meets a caretaker-turned-ranch manager. The conversat...

Author Ellie Mack returns to discuss her contemporary ballet romance book Make It Nice, set in New York City on a concurrent timeline with her book Kiss Me Thrice. Bailey and Sean spend a summer repairing their relationship and exploring hurt/comfort dynamics on a journey toward trust and self-confidence. We also talk about Ellie’s next project, an untitled grief-focused, brother’s-best-friend roa...

Author Ali Roberts (and sometimes co-host of this podcast), known for her diet dark rom-coms, returns to discuss After a Killer, the second book in the Dinner Club series of interconnected standalones. This is the much-anticipated story of Katie and Jonesy’s frenemies-to-lovers, second-chance romance. Today, we’re talking about captivating first chapters, excellent pacing, delicious banter, and ho...

Author Maggie Gates returns to Love Letters and Books to introduce Good Hands, a morally gray (ish) romance about a grumpy casino bouncer, a stats professor turned card counter, and what happens when “stealing from Peter to pay Paul” goes very, very wrong. Amelia has spent her whole life cleaning up her brother Joel’s messes, and starts counting cards to pay off his debt (at the exact casino owned...

Dark romance author Alina May returns to the podcast to talk about Lucky #14, the latest installment in her interconnected Hunter’s Club universe. This is a high-stakes thriller where people are hunted for sport, and survival is the only rule. We explore what happens when deeply traumatized people try to love each other, why real intimacy often looks like messing up and trying again rather than be...

Author Erinn Maxwell returns to talk about Of Fate and Fortune, the dual-timeline sequel to Of Heather and Thistle that follows Heather and Flynn in contemporary Scotland as they hunt for Jacobite gold while uncovering the 18th‑century love story of her ancestors, Harris and Fiona. We discuss how the novel uses history, hidden treasures, and parallel romances to examine legacy, cycle-breaking, and...

Join me for another hopecore episode with Ceilidh of @YourHopefulRomantic! Today, we’re exploring the double narrative of the phrase, “Good things happen when you least expect them,” and how it can feel both hopeful and deeply invalidating when you’re at rock bottom. And why these kinds of storylines in books can be so healing. So whether you’ve hit a wall or just fallen off your path, we’re here...

Author CJ North returns to talk about Grave Errors, a why-choose MFM dark romance that collides medical debt rage, vigilante justice, and forced-proximity obsession. We discuss the real-world fuel behind this book: the cruelty of medical debt, medical gaslighting, and the belief that our lives only have value if we’re perfect humans who never struggle, get sick, or need help. CJ shares personal he...

Horror romance author Tylor Page returns to Love Letters and Books to talk about her traditional publishing debut, Good for Her, a Hollywood-set horror romance. We’re talking about romance, revenge, and our favorite “final girls” who reclaim their power and make the bad guys pay. Tylor also shares candidly about career growth, rewrites, listening to readers, and why the slow, messy climb is often...

I spoke with Katie King, author of Rules for Starting Over and Rules for Faking a Marriage. Today, we're talking about slow burns, big feels, and swoony chaos. Katie's books are contemporary romances with heart, depth, and emotional safety. We explore why we love imperfect characters who make cringeworthy mistakes and awkward apologies, yet still work hard to build strong foundations in th...

In this episode, I’m joined by Ceilidh @YourHopefulRomantic for a conversation about what it really means to let hope guide us in life and love, and how the books we read can offer us an entirely new perspective on what it means to cultivate hope in our lives. We’re also going to explore why cynicism is so tempting, how negativity bias keeps us small, and why hoping out loud can feel like a radica...

In this episode, my guest host, author Ali Roberts, and I drop into dark, deliciously over-the-top Mafia and Bratva romance books to explore why morally gray (and morally black), rule-breaking heroes and high-stakes love stories are so irresistible to romance readers. We’re talking about enemies-to-lovers tension and obsessive devotion, slow-burn angst, mental health themes, and totally unhinged,...

I spoke with UK-based romance author Lila Dawes about Redemption, book one in her Cowgirls Do It Better series: a slow-burn, enemies-to-lovers cowboy romance set against the Grand Tetons, where the women run the ranch, the emotional stakes are sky-high, and forgiveness is the hardest thing anyone is asked to do. We definitely talk romance, but it's also a discussion about grief, guilt, account...

I spoke with author Elaine Evans about her beautiful debut novel, Becoming Mallory, a sweet coming-of-age romance that follows Mallory, a young woman with autism, anxiety, and depression, as she navigates her way through growing up and finding her place in the world. The story focuses on themes of self-discovery, love, and acceptance. But we're also dropping quite a bit deeper in this episode...

I spoke with Ariel Anderson, the author behind the viral romantic tragedy Under Your Scars. Today, we're talking about her latest book, the mythic romantic tragedy, Entombed, which, for me, was a five-star read. We are exploring so many themes in Ariel's writing today, including being the outsider, tenderness, loneliness, relationships that nurture us, connection, and communication, as wel...

I spoke with author Erinn Maxwell about her powerful debut novel, Of Heather and Thistle. This is a slow-burn, small-town romance where healing matters just as much as the happily ever after. It's a story about second chances, self-discovery, a hot Scotsman, and the unexpected places we find home. Make sure to stay until the end to listen to Erinn’s love letter, a heartfelt message to the woma...

Maggie Gates returns to talk all things Fire Line, the finale in her bestselling Griffith Brothers Ranch series, now being re-released in North American bookstores on March 3 with a brand-new cover and two paperback-exclusive bonus chapters. If you love cowboy romance with real emotional stakes, complicated heroines, and heroes who have to grow up fast or lose the one person who finally sees them,...

I spoke with author CJ North. We discuss her Louisiana swamp-set romance, Beast of the Bayou, and her dystopian love story, Jump or Fall, exploring devotion through acts of service, power, and agency in high-stakes worlds, and what it really means to love someone who is still healing. We talk about acute versus complex trauma, embodied responses to intimacy, revenge transformed by connection, and...

I am joined by author Ali Roberts (The Unseen and After Hours) for an in-depth chat about our all-time favorite cowboy and cowboy-adjacent romance books. We’re talking small towns, ranch life, country living, and Yellowstone-dark antiheroes, all anchored in themes of found family, devotion, and happily ever afters. Not to mention the rustic settings, dream ranches, and wild rodeos. We didn’t have...

I spoke with Ceilidh of @yourhopefulromantic on IG/TikTok, PA to romance author Bailey Hannah, and the hype-engine behind content teams and reader communities that actually feel good. We talk about everything in this episode, from eldest-daughter energy and imposter syndrome to grief, boundaries, and going after what we want, even if we have to do it scared. We discuss soft hearts, strong boundari...

I spoke with Ambar Cordova, author of the Baker Oaks series, a series of interconnected stand-alone stories about interracial and multicultural small-town romances. In this episode, we talk about our love for very human, flawed characters, tender partnerships, the many variations of intimacy and vulnerability in our lives, and why representation of body diversity, chronic illness, and neurodiverge...

I spoke with Ellie Mack, author of Kiss Me Thrice, a New York City ballet romance that takes us on a journey of ambition, artistry, and first love. This book offers a compassionate exploration of OCD, self-sabotage, and the power of letting the present rewrite the stories we tell about our past. Ellie will be your new favorite author if you crave immersive writing, passionate, emotionally intellig...