Ceilidh returns to Love Letters and Books direct from the Bailey Hannah headquarters to talk about Wild With You by Lynsey Harper. This is a Canadian ranch romance about Josie who wrestles with belonging and choosing a relationship that supports adventure. Lynsey shares a love letter about worthiness, hope, and love in all its forms. Ceilidh and I discuss her recent experience moderating an in-person author event in Alberta—hosted by romance author Lynsey Harper—alongside Canadian authors C.N. Rudy, Tamara Rene, Tanisha Headley, and Kylie Waechter. We cover a lot of ground in this episode, including speaking our dreams out loud and showing up when opportunities arise, romanticizing your life through presence, and slowing down.

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Romance author Tawnya Torres returns to the Love Letters and Books podcast to discuss all of our favorite books where SHE is the stalker! Tawnya’s book, A Taste of Candy, was my introduction to this sub-genre. Her book flipped the Haunting Adeline-style dynamic, making the woman the stalker. We discuss how FMC stalkers challenge restrictive gender roles and relationship dynamics. I share my “She’s the Stalker” reading list, including Cracked Ice by K.D. Cureton, The Wrong Catch by C.R. Jane, The Blood We Crave by Monty Jay, and Empire of Hate by Rina Kent. Tawnya also talks about leaving a toxic job that crushed her creativity, regaining her writing spark, and teasing her upcoming Halloween release, The Patience of Alligator Teeth, a New Orleans-set literary horror/Gothic romance about a kidnapped cook caring for a criminal family’s ill daughter in the bayou.

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Sports romance author Allie Lasky joins the Love Letters and Books podcast to discuss Instigator, book six in the Boston Grizzlies Hockey Club series, centered on a grumpy, misunderstood team captain and longtime caretaker who discovers he’s autistic while confronting years of romantic relationship trauma and learning to receive support. The FMC is a 43-year-old billionaire tech genius with ADHD navigating perimenopause and a lifelong pattern of seeking validation through work and attention. Today we’re touching on joy, therapy, disability representation, and the book’s heightened spice, plus Lasky’s busy release and event schedule, with Instigator out August 14, followed by One Timer in September and Delay of Game in December to finish the series.

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Allie Martina, host of the Zipless podcast and an audiobook narrator of more than 75 novels, joins Love Letters and Books to share the origins of Zipless and how romance reading and narration helped her embrace women’s desire without shame, tracing the term “zipless” back to Erica Jong’s Fear of Flying and the “zipless” concept that shaped her understanding of women’s sexuality and feminism. The conversation explores curiosity, community, and how romance can be healing, especially for trauma survivors, through the promise of a happy ending and being seen and believed. Allie discusses her voice-acting background, including DC Universe Online roles under the name Kelly Houston. We perform a cold-read duet from When the Smoke Clears by Steffanie Blais, and Allie closes with a love letter to her younger self about self-worth, consent, and choosing joy.

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Romance author Valentina Burns joins the Love Letters and Books podcast to discuss her debut four-book Rose City series. She explores the romance genre’s healing promise of a happy ending as a way to challenge the belief that happiness is only for certain people, and explains how she writes messy, human characters navigating trauma, survivorship, fear, and the courage to believe you deserve more. Valentina describes the Rose City world—two “matchmaking” apartments above Bowie's bar in Portland—blending Friends-style banter with This Is Us emotional nuance through an interconnected found-family arc. She outlines the series (Finding Home, Finding Freedom, Finding Forever, and Finding Redemption) then reads a love letter to her younger self about surviving darkness, letting love in, and walking towards that happy ending she used to read about.

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Ceilidh of @Yourhopefulromantic is back for another Hopecore chat on regret—how it surfaces, changes with time, and can become a teacher rather than a life sentence. We’re discussing societal pressure, “shoulds,” identity shifts, and trusting intuition versus fear. The conversation pivots to Ceilidh’s book pick for this episode, One More Round by Amber Palmer, which explores grief, mental health, single parents, and a message that it’s never too late to start over. Amber also joins us with a love letter!

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Author Ronnie Matthews joins the Love Letters and Books podcast to discuss Melody Whispers and her approach to cozy, nostalgic small-town romance that balances witty banter with emotionally raw, character-driven healing arcs. Ronnie explains her “emotional damage” philosophy—taking readers from point A to point B by feeling every emotion with flawed characters—and pushes back on misconceptions that romance is poorly written or defined only by sex, emphasizing how the genre teaches empathy and connection. She unpacks Melody Whispers as a story of PTSD and accountability through Warren’s ongoing self-work and Harriet’s parallel journey through accidental pregnancy and holding onto her identity as a songwriter. Ronnie shares how her own mental health experiences and belief in vulnerability as bravery shape her books, reflects on debuting Those Two Words, previews a grittier secret project and her next book, Country Vows, and reads an emotional love letter to her younger self about surviving darkness, asking for help, and trusting your journey.

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We're talking about our favorite auto-buy authors—those authors whose books we pre-order even though there’s no title, no blurb, and we have no idea who the characters are (We’re looking at you, Shantel Tessier!) Whether we love their writing style, the characters they create, or the wild universe they drop us into, these authors are always at the top of our list. We also have a love letter from my number one, auto-buy author of all time, Jennifer Ivy! My co-host Ali Roberts also gives an update on her recent book, After a Killer, a dark-ish romcom you won’t want to miss.

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Authors included in this episode:

• Ali Hazelwood
• Jennifer Ivy
• Tessa Bailey
• Meghan Quinn
• Penelope Douglas
• Stephanie Archer
• Shantel Tessier

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 societal expectations. We talk tropes, pacing, spice as “action scenes with poetry,” and why Regency settings heighten yearning and stakes, plus Zamudio’s reflections on fear, imposter syndrome, and the importance of community.

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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 horse accident, traumatic brain injury, and memory loss, forcing them to rebuild their marriage as he falls in love with his wife and kids again. We talk about choosing a marriage-in-crisis story, themes of trust, resilience, caretaking, and invisible grief, plus balancing heavy topics with humor, spice, and small romantic moments. Bailey also previews a surprise later this year, the October re-release of Christmas at Fox Ridge, and the Echo Lake series next spring. Love Wells Kept releases July 7 (US) and July 9 (UK).

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