Our Next Chapter: A Rom-Com & Romance Books Podcast

Lisa Kleypas has written romance for more than thirty years, and Queen of Lombard Street, out October 20 from Avon, is the first book she says she wrote purely for herself. Reina Martin is an economist in 1880 London who started out as nobody's child in the eyes of the law and wants to open a bank so other women can get ahead.We talk about the health scare that pushed Lisa to write the book of her heart, the household of paroled prisoners who took over the story, and the real women she researched. Before all that, we talk about Matt's birthday and rules on a list of Victorian etiquette.Find Lisa at lisakleypas.com, where her gallery of the real women behind the book lives, and on Instagram at @lisakleypas and TikTok at @reallisakleypas.Find us on YouTube and Instagram at Our Next Chapter Podcast. If you're listening...and reading this far, a rating and a review genuinely helps.Matt & Andrea here. Thanks for joining us on this journey. We'd love to hear from you. Visit us at www.OurNextChapterPodcast.com

Every Friday, Katie Clapham writes down what happens in her bookshop as it happens and sends it out on Substack. Those diaries became Receipts from the Bookshop, out now from William Morrow.Katie tells us how she and her mum opened Storytellers, Inc. in Lytham St Annes in 2010, why readers now plan trips around a visit to the shop, and what a £16 day looks like from behind the till. She also prescribes books for an airport delay, a rainy cabin and a book club that wants a fight. Before that, Andrea opens a bookshop of her own and Matt plays the customers she would rather not serve.Find Katie on Substack at katieclapham.substack.com and on Instagram at @katieclaphamwriting. The shop is @storytellers.inc.Find us on YouTube and Instagram at Our Next Chapter Podcast. If the show is doing something for you, a rating and a review genuinely helps.Matt & Andrea here. Thanks for joining us on this journey. We'd love to hear from you. Visit us at www.OurNextChapterPodcast.com

Kate Golden is back, and this time she brought a book and a baby...kind of.Cursed City, book two of the Harker Academy series, is out September 29. Katetells us where Viv lands after the Half City cliffhanger, what it costs her towork alongside a demon she despises, and why she is telling readers to girdtheir loins before the ending.We also get into her first year as a full-time author, writing on a newborn'sschedule, and reading reviews for fun.Then we play the Impossible Meet Cute, the game Kate invented for us back onChapter 36, and this time it pairs a quirky wedding photographer with a private chef, and a stop at Buc-ee's?Before all of that, Matt opens a school for deviants and interviews Andreafor admission. Watch that one on YouTube, but don't. Really. Yikes.Cursed City is out Tuesday, September 29 from Ace.Kate on Instagram: @kategoldenauthorKate's website: kategoldenbooks.comFind us on YouTube and Instagram at Our Next Chapter Podcast. If the show isdoing something for you, a rating and a review genuinely helps.Matt & Andrea here. Thanks for joining us on this journey. We'd love to hear from you. Visit us at www.OurNextChapterPodcast.com

Before Laurie was the number one New York Times bestseller behind The Pumpkin Spice Cafe and the Dream Harbor series, she was writing werewolves under her own name, Melissa McTernan. Big Bad Wolf is that book, pulled back out, heavily rewritten and re-released under the name her readers know her by. She tells us what it is like to reopen something you wrote years ago, what she cut (the entire first third), what she refused to touch, and why a hero who walked away from his whole pack needed an old lady best friend.Before the interview, Andrea digs out her Shelley Duvall Fairy Tale Theatre DVDs and Matt chats through where fairy tales actually came from, why the oldest ones have no fairies in them at all, and the three rules nearly every one of them follows.Matt & Andrea here. Thanks for joining us on this journey. We'd love to hear from you. Visit us at www.OurNextChapterPodcast.com

We’re sharing the romance books, magical realism, and new releases we’ve been reading, then taking you inside the Get Lit Adult Book Fair at the Dallas Public Library to for a little bit of convo and chaos.Andrea recommends Mad Mabel, The Mash Up by Laura Marie Myers, and Our Perfect Storm by Carley Fortune. Matt is reading People We Meet on Vacation by Emily Henry, and together we’re reading Abby Jimenez’s A Married Little Christmas.Then we settle a serious book-lover debate... should books stay clean and carefully protected, or should dog-eared pages, cracked spines, coffee stains, and a little pool water prove they were loved?Matt & Andrea here. Thanks for joining us on this journey. We'd love to hear from you. Visit us at www.OurNextChapterPodcast.com

This week, we’re joined by debut author Amy Archer to talk about Nemesis Mine, her funny and unexpectedly tender fantasy rom-com about a worn-out hero, an underappreciated villain, and the fake feud that leads to very real feelings.Amy shares how childhood poetry nights and letters from her granddad helped shape her life as a writer, why she loves bringing together characters who seemingly have no business belonging together, and how writing from a villain’s perspective gave her permission to be a little more irreverent. Plus, Amy reveals her connection to BBC’s Sherlock, tells us about her intense Squid Game era, and joins us for an Impossible Meet Cute involving a time-traveling knight, a terrified horror novelist, and one deeply confusing trip to the gym.Before the interview, we kick off the North Texas Indie Bookstore Crawl. Afterward, we open the mailbox and discover that someone in our house may be plotting against Andrea.Matt & Andrea here. Thanks for joining us on this journey. We'd love to hear from you. Visit us at www.OurNextChapterPodcast.com

In this episode, we put our relationship to the test with a few would-you-rather questions from a classic Cosmo-style quiz, then sit down with bestselling author and former Cosmopolitan editor John Searles to talk about his new novel, Single Girls.John shares how a brutally honest rejection nearly ended his writing career, the unlikely path that led him to Cosmopolitan, and what it was like working alongside legendary editor Helen Gurley Brown for more than two decades. Then we debut a brand-new, fresh outta the oven segment, Officially Stacked, and add Naina Kumar’s Scottish road-trip romance Just a Highland Fling to our growing TBR.Matt & Andrea here. Thanks for joining us on this journey. We'd love to hear from you. Visit us at www.OurNextChapterPodcast.com

This week, we’re joined by contemporary romance author Georgia Stone to talk about her new rom-com, The Roommate Rule.Georgia shares how growing up in Switzerland shaped her creativity, how she came back to reading and writing as an adult, and how late-night writing sessions helped her turn a tiny idea into her debut novel. We also talk about doomed rules, forced proximity, tall heroines, banter, book tours, author signatures, and the joy of writing imaginary friends for a living.Matt & Andrea here. Thanks for joining us on this journey. We'd love to hear from you. Visit us at www.OurNextChapterPodcast.com

We’re back from a very bookish road trip with a slightly late episode, a dash of magic, and the world’s biggest em dash announcement.This week, we launch our very serious, very unofficial Save the Em Dash movement, recap a weekend of author events with Kirsty Greenwood, Ashley Poston, Kayla Olson, Livy Hart, and Naina Kumar, and dive into why magical realism has become one of our favorite storytelling devices.From Romantic Hero and The Love of My Afterlife to The Seven Year Slip, The Dead Romantics, and The Someday Garden, we talk about romance books that use one impossible thing to make grief, hope, humor, love, and change feel even more real. We also share how magical realism may be making its way into our own book.Plus, the great Mattzini does some Matt-gic. Join the Movement: www.OurNextChapter.com/SaveTheEmDashMatt & Andrea here. Thanks for joining us on this journey. We'd love to hear from you. Visit us at www.OurNextChapterPodcast.com

Lauren Okie is back for our first-ever return guest episode, and we’re talking all things Tropesick, her second novel out June 16. We get into romance tropes, writing through fear, sophomore-book pressure, big emotional swings, and why Lauren is so good at writing stories that feel messy, honest, hot, and human. Plus, we rank Andrea’s favorite romance tropes and somehow make room for Annabel Monaghan, fake dating, Jason Momoa, and Matt’s ongoing refusal to watch The Notebook.Matt & Andrea here. Thanks for joining us on this journey. We'd love to hear from you. Visit us at www.OurNextChapterPodcast.com