In the Lime Light with Rebecca Gould Baeurle
July 30, 2026
This bonus episode's Lime Light shines on Rebecca Gould Baeurle, author of The Secrets Trilogy — a love-story-with-a-criminal-twist series following two sisters through hardship, betrayal, and danger in Philadelphia. We talk about writing a full first draft in two months, why she almost didn't publish at all, and the real-life roots behind her very fictional sisters.
About Rebecca
Rebecca Gould Baeurle spent her career in the nonprofit sector as an executive director and fundraiser before turning to fiction. She's the author of The Secrets Trilogy, a series that blends romance, suspense, family drama, and mystery — all anchored by the bond between two sisters navigating love, dangerous secrets, and life-changing choices.
The Books
Six Weeks of Love and Larceny — the debut. Two sisters in their early twenties, Lauren and Nikki, are dealing with life's ups and downs together in Philadelphia. Lauren is a cub reporter chasing an investigative story; Nikki's unexpected romance leads to confusion, betrayal, and danger.
Twelve Weeks of Love and Loss — the sequel, out July 28th. Picks up three years later, offering a second chance at romance that takes a hard, sinister turn.
Sixteen Weeks of Love and Lies — closes out the trilogy, releasing next year.
All three novels are set in Philadelphia, where Rebecca lives — the books lean into local color, from Philly cuisine to sports fandom.
In This Episode
How a "pet project" turned into a full trilogy
Writing a complete first draft in two months (and what came after)
Getting stalled by fear of the publishing world — and how she got unstuck
The real sisterhood behind her fictional sisters
Why agents are hungry for sister stories right now
Narrating her own audiobook (harder than it sounds)
Writing what you know: Philadelphia, University of Delaware, and pulling from a real life
"That's what makes it real. I mean, I know it's true." — Rebecca, on drawing from her own life for the books
Where to Find Rebecca
Buy the books: Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Bookshop.org, or wherever books are sold
Website: https://www.rebeccagouldbaeurle.com/
Instagram: @beckybaeurle
Loved this episode? Send it to the sister-story lover in your life.
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cait (00:18)
Awesome. So today, on this really exciting bonus episode, we are joined by author Rebecca Gould Baeurle author of The Secrets Trilogy, which includes six weeks of Love and Larceny and 12 weeks of Love and Loss, which is coming out on July 28th. Rebecca's novels blend.
Romance, suspense, family drama, and mystery as they follow two sisters navigating love, dangerous secrets, and life-changing choices. So Rebecca, welcome to or Becky, I'm gonna call you Becky. yeah.
Rebecca (00:51)
Yes, absolutely. Call Becky.
cait (00:53)
Welcome to Mars and Manuscripts. We're so excited to chat about your books and the exciting summer you have coming up, your writing journey. We wanna hear all of it.
Rebecca (01:02)
Well, thank you so much for having me.
so just to tell you a little bit about the trilogy, Six Weeks of Love and Larceny was my debut novel. it just was released right before Christmas time this past year. and it was well received by readers and so that inspired me to write a a sequel which is called Twelve Weeks of Love and Loss, which as you just mentioned, will be released on July twenty eighth. So that's
just about to come out. And then you know, of course there was some downtime waiting for those to be published. And so of course I had to write sixteen weeks of Love and Lies to close out the trilogy. So
Jenna G Judith (01:45)
my goodness!
Rebecca (01:46)
yeah
cait (01:48)
What
a brand that is.
Rebecca (01:50)
So the trilogy does follow the same characters through these different periods in their life and the changing circumstances that arise along the way.
cait (02:00)
That's so g did you know it sounds like you didn't you didn't know like when you were writing that first one that it was going to become a trilogy, or did you?
Rebecca (02:08)
No, I didn't. So I wrote it at well, first of all, I just started it kind of as a pet project. Like I didn't really know that this was going to, you know, be a a full blown novel. I just kind of started writing it and then I as soon as I got into it a little bit, I was like, ooh, I l I like this story and I like these people. Like I you I'm gonna keep writing. So you know, then I d I kind of fell in love with it and I I kept going.
my ending to six weeks was left a little bit up to the imagination and so a door was kind of still open and I thought, well, okay, there's my door to, you know, write a sequel. The the ending of six weeks is a chapter that's three years later. And it just sort of opens up a scene three years later that leaves you thinking like, hmm, you know, I wonder what's gonna happen there. So twelve weeks
starts on that same day. So you just
Jenna G Judith (03:00)
I love that.
cait (03:01)
Yeah. That's cool.
Rebecca (03:02)
Yeah, so it it's the same scene, just from a different perspective, that opens up twelve weeks and then it it follows these characters through the the next cycle of, you know, their lives together.
Jenna G Judith (03:16)
How was that? Like you you know, there was time between you writing the end of the first one and starting the second one, like physical time in the
writing, but not
Rebecca (03:27)
Right.
Jenna G Judith (03:28)
in time in the book. So how was that of like literally like jumping like feet first back into it?
Rebecca (03:34)
You know what? I I I hate to say this, but I found it to be easy because you know, I already knew the characters. They were already developed. and so I I felt felt like I knew them and I've felt like I knew how they would react in certain circumstances, et cetera. And so it just twelve weeks built really quickly for me. Like it it just kept moving.
And twelve weeks is has much more of a sort of thriller bent to it than six weeks did.
it's all held together by a a very strong sisterhood between two sisters.
Jenna G Judith (04:11)
I I think the most interesting part about you describing your books is that it's like a Venn diagram from Hill of like trying to pinpoint all of the themes and genres of like books these days. It's just incredible of all of the combinations people come up with. It's like a choose your own adventure of book. You want this, this, this, we got some for you too. So
Rebecca (04:32)
Yeah. Well
cait (04:33)
Yeah.
Rebecca (04:33)
it's actually quite intimidating with the, you know, volume of books that are published every day. It I'm glad
Jenna G Judith (04:39)
My gosh.
Rebecca (04:40)
I didn't actually know that before I started writing this. I probably wouldn't have done it.
cait (04:45)
That's
Jenna G Judith (04:45)
very
intimidating, yeah.
cait (04:46)
very yeah, for sure. but I think that honestly that's where the genre is go going. Like that's where it the it's moving in this direction of like a lot a lot of authors we've interviewed that have romance coming out this summer, the books are more in-depth. They're way more detailed, they're way more researched, and they have kind of like these deeper plots. And so I think that yours incorporating the crime.
aspect of it and the sisterhood aspect of it is like yeah, pushing the genre to like where it's heading towards is like more more content in the books. Like that's the best way I can describe it. They're not as like straightforward anymore.
I have to ask you as a writer, and as a now like my book just came out like last month, but how did you how are you having two books come out?
In like the same six or seven month like, are you okay? Are you are you surviving this? How has it been?
Rebecca (05:45)
Yeah.
well, I I write surprisingly fast.
cait (05:52)
Mm-hmm.
Rebecca (05:54)
f first of all, I d w as I s mentioned earlier, I didn't really sit down with a well thought out story. I just kind of started with a character and started writing and then it sort of just kept building in my mind and I just kept going. So I didn't have a real structure. I it just
sort of came to me. So I wrote the whole first novel in two months. And of course it was a first draft. So it needed a
Jenna G Judith (06:24)
yeah.
Rebecca (06:24)
it you know, it needed a lot of work after that. But I mean from from the time that I sat down to type the first word until I got to the end of the story it was two months. And when I tell other writers that, they're like, Are you kidding me? Like it you know, it took me several years. Like but but I think it was because
again, it was just the first draft and I then had to go back and perfect everything. but it was that's how fast the story came. And then I got stalled in the publishing process because I was intimidated by it. Like I didn't know anything about the literary world when I s got involved with this. So I started, you know, researching, you know, how to get something published and it was it was
a big scary place, quite honestly. There's just so many, you know, scammers out there and I you know, I didn't know what to do. I was afraid to to share it with people that it might it might somehow my intellectual property would be stolen or that you know, having no history in the field, I I really didn't know how to navigate it. So I got stalled after I wrote six weeks and you know how you never deal with things that you don't really enjoy. So I put that on the back burner and wrote twelve weeks.
cait (07:38)
Yeah.
Rebecca (07:41)
So when I found an editor that that I was happy with and trust and everything, the twelve week was already well underway. So
cait (07:51)
Yeah.
Rebecca (07:51)
that's how come it's c happening so fast.
cait (07:54)
Yeah, that's really cool. That's a lot though.
Jenna G Judith (07:54)
That's true. Like like you kinda
Rebecca (07:57)
Yeah.
Jenna G Judith (07:58)
I certainly can relate to the like first draft just coming out of like I just it just needs to get on the page and when you get to the end you're like I'm delirious
Rebecca (08:09)
Right.
Jenna G Judith (08:10)
and like what do I do now?
cait (08:11)
Yeah, I totally can understand that.
Well, this book is getting really amazing reviews. I've like read all of them. And people love specifically the the dynamic between the sisters. and I have to say, like two two and a half years ago, I was at a writer's conference and there was an agent doing a workshop and people were like, What do agents want right now? What are they looking for? And she said, All people want right now
All agents want are stories about sisters.
And so I thought
Rebecca (08:42)
Really?
cait (08:43)
of that when I read your when I was researching your books and stuff, I was like, my gosh, two this is the perfect time because all those books are now gonna be coming out. People want to read about sisters. So tell me more about the sister dynamic and where that came from. I do exactly.
Jenna G Judith (08:56)
How many sisters do you have?
Rebecca (08:58)
So I just
I just have one. but she's my only sibling. So it's just the two of us and we've always had a strong relationship. so I understand sisterhood and I appreciate it and love it and so it's something that is very natural for me to write about. and I didn't know that. I didn't know that sister stories were a big thing right now. So I guess I just kinda lucked out with writing about that.
and I I like to write strong women because there are a lot of strong women in my life. So I also understand that and, you know, what it looks like and, you know, how it translates into the world, et cetera. so that all sort of came very natural to me. I didn't really have to think about that too hard.
Jenna G Judith (09:48)
So if it felt like a very fluid dynamic of the like storytelling that you were coming up with.
Rebecca (09:56)
Yeah, and I mean these characters are fictional. I I made them up, but
Jenna G Judith (09:59)
no, they're real They're real.
cait (10:01)
Exactly.
Rebecca (10:05)
but but everything that you think of in your mind comes from your own experiences, right? So I mean I think these characters have little pieces of a lot of the people that I've known throughout my life or that I, you know, still have in my life, or even other books that I've read or TV shows I've watched or
Whatever, it's all part of what makes up your imagination. So you know, just pieces of experiences along the way.
Jenna G Judith (10:32)
Yeah, I love how you can almost reread your work and be like, That's what I experienced that day. That's what they
cait (10:40)
Yeah.
Jenna G Judith (10:42)
experienced and I watched them experience it. that day. Yeah. Definitely a mood
cait (10:44)
That day, yeah, writing that. I wanna touch
Jenna G Judith (10:49)
writer.
cait (10:50)
Yeah, first yeah, yeah, we all are. I also want to touch on the audiobook aspect of so you have your audiobook for six weeks is coming out. You said by the end of the summer, mi mid August. so that's also really exciting for you as well.
Rebecca (11:09)
Well, the audiobook option came to be just because I know several people who that's the only way they read. You know, they listen. So I thought, wow, that's really sort of, you know, I'm cutting out a whole audience by not having an audio version. you know, and anybody i I I get it. People are busy and if
you don't have time to sit down and read. You know, you can plug in your earphones and, you know, cook dinner or do the dishes, or especially if you've got a long commute or anything like that, if you're in the car a lot, you know, you can listen. So I thought it was important, to do it. and of course this is my first it it's not finished yet and it's my first experience with audio. So I'm not
probably the best person to, you know, ask about this, because I don't really have anything to compare it to. But it's being read by someone else. It's not being read by me. I do have to say that I find it difficult to read out loud because my my brain goes faster than the word it it's just it I stumbled. I
Jenna G Judith (12:16)
Yeah.
Rebecca (12:17)
tried to do it and literally just reading the first chapter took me like five times to get it
n you know, and it's I wrote it. I mean I should be familiar with the content, you know. But it is it it was harder than you would think. Have
cait (12:30)
Yeah.
Rebecca (12:31)
either of you ever done an audio book?
Jenna G Judith (12:33)
Kate's working on hers and you read yours.
cait (12:36)
I'm working on his
but I'm but I'm not like my husband has a recording s like he's a sound develop like it's engineer. Like it's not he's doing it all. Like and reading it is very, very hard. But I also was like, I don't wanna play all the characters like Yes. No
Rebecca (12:50)
Well yeah. And then you have to try to change your b like I just want it to be something that it's like, okay,
I'm not an actress, I don't know how to do this. Yeah.
cait (12:58)
Yeah, no, I was like, We'll get some other people in here to play the characters. I'll just I'll read the narration, but no, so I'm not even the right person to ask either, but I'm curious about other people's experiences because I know that there's a lot of different types of authors, like indie authors, hybrid authors, small pret that are exploring how to do audiobooks. and it seems not as straightforward as you think it is. yeah.
Rebecca (13:24)
Right. Well, because
some and I d I don't listen to audiobooks, but I've been told that some people prefer them to be completely monotone so that your imagination can fill in the rest. And other people are like, my God, no, that's so boring. That would put me to sleep. I so it's really there's a lot of personal preference that comes into it.
Jenna G Judith (13:46)
Yeah, and you need to strike a you know, screw it, we should just like interview audiobook narrator at this point.
cait (13:53)
We I know we need to get
an audiobook narrator for sure 'cause this is like a whole we could talk for another hour about that experience.
cait (14:01)
anyway. I just want I want you to pitch. Do you want to pitch six weeks? Do you want to pitch 12 weeks?
Rebecca (14:09)
well I I can talk a little bit about six weeks and then how that leads into to twelve weeks since twelve weeks will be the next released. it all s it all began with with six weeks and it is a a love story with a criminal twist, so to speak, that stars two sisters living in Philadelphia. They're in their early twenties and they are sort of
They've experienced some hardships in their life that has left them basically alone in the world with each other. So that's part of how their strong sisterhood bond has developed because they rely on and support one another quite a bit throughout the story. so they are together, you know, dealing with life's ups, downs, and in-betweens. the older sister
Her name is Lauren and she's a cub reporter for the Philadelphia Inquirer. And she writes a lifestyle column called Philly's Top Ten. So she writes about Philly's top ten brunch spots, Philly's top ten sandwich spots, like you know, whatever, Philly's top ten. and the younger sister, Nikki, is a fashion student at Drexel who works two jobs in addition to classes. So she's hustling and bustling all the time, just trying to
keep it all together. and there is an unexpected romance that develops with Nikki, the younger sister, that leads to some confusion and betrayal and suspense that ultimately leads to danger.
And Lauren has an intern named Amanda, who is you know, trying to be a good intern and really show that she can do more than write for this lifestyle column and brings a investigative piece to Lauren's attention that the two of them go after, and then the two sisters' stories sort of intersect from that juncture, and then all the action begins from there. Yeah.
Jenna G Judith (16:18)
Very suspenseful.
Rebecca (16:18)
So then that le
that leads into twelve weeks, which again, as I mentioned earlier, starts three years later with these same characters. And there is an opportunity, the door opens for an opportunity for a second chance at an unforgettable romance that starts out one way and then takes a sort of sudden hard left turn down a darker road that.
you're not really expecting that takes you into a sinister space.
Jenna G Judith (16:55)
These poor sisters.
Rebecca (16:56)
Why not? Well
and then and then with sixteen weeks of Love and Lies, which again won't be out until next year, it kind of wraps their story up. But I mean, I got to the point that I like, I have to wrap these girls up because how much can really happen to these girls? I mean, the poor things, you know.
Jenna G Judith (17:16)
Soon there's gonna be like a documentary about them, like whole thing.
Rebecca (17:22)
and all three novels take place in Philadelphia. So the the books have a lot of iconic locations in them. There's a lot of Philly lingo, a lot of Philly cuisine, you know, there's a lot of f the Philly fandom because, you know
Philadelphia's a a big, you know, fan city that like the the whole city is kind of, you know, held together by the, you know, the unity of, you know, being an Eagles fan or, you know, Phillies fan or new, you know, whichever team you're rooting for. But it's a big sports town. So there's a lot of that that threads through the all three novels as well, which makes it fun for anybody who's familiar with the city. And the city definitely has a personality of its own.
that people can very much relate to and that I think makes the story seem very real and it makes the characters in the story seem real because, you know, they fit authentically into the space.
Jenna G Judith (18:22)
Absolutely. And it y you wanna be authentic to yourself and you don't want it to feel like you're reaching. So I love that, you know, you wrote what you knew. Minus the hopefully deception and darkness. Yes.
cait (18:34)
Ha ha ha.
Rebecca (18:35)
Yeah. Minus the bad stuff. Yeah. Yeah. That
part, that stuff I made up. But a lot of the story is is rooted in my own experiences. Lauren, the older sister in the story, was a graduate of University of Delaware and that's where I went to school. the girls grew up in a small town in North Jersey. That's where I grew up. You know, the story takes place in Philadelphia. I live outside Philadelphia. My son currently lives in center city. My first job out of college was in Rittenhouse Square. You know, I so I just sort of
drew upon things that I knew, which I kind of at first thought was a little bit cheating. Like I didn't have to research anything. You know, I th it was it was stuff I knew. But I was like, yeah, but that's what makes it real. I mean I know it's true. You know?
Jenna G Judith (19:18)
Yeah. That's what makes it feel authentic.
cait (19:19)
Yes.
Rebecca (19:21)
Yeah.
cait (19:22)
Yeah, absolutely. And I think it's like so important because I think that gives you like this reader base too that you can reach out to and and say, like, you know, like people from that area will get excited about reading a a book that takes place there and they might pick it up for that reason, you know, and I like why not? Like, yeah, of course you would. That totally makes sense. awesome. And then where can get it?
Rebecca (19:49)
so six again, twelve weeks will be released next month. So it's not currently available, but will be shortly. and twelve weeks is available at Amazon.com, BarnesandNoble.com, bookshop.org, or you know, wherever books are sold. You can order it off my website at Rebecca Gouldbierly.com.
And you can follow me on social at RG Books on Facebook or at Becky Byerly on Instagram for updates on, you know, release dates and other places to purchase the book
