In the Lime Light with Rebecca Gould Baeurle

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.

What We Talked About

• 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.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to the limelight. It's Thursday, which means it's time for us to highlight new releases, can't miss books, and the authors making waves. We're bringing you the stories you'll want to add to your TBR immediately. So grab a drink and let's dive in. Awesome. So today on this really exciting bonus episode, we are joined by author Rebecca Goldbierley, 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. Yes, I absolutely call you. Welcome to Marcus and Manuscripts. We're so excited to chat about your books and the exciting summer you have coming up, your writing journey. We want to hear all of it.

SPEAKER_02 1:03

Well, thank you so much for having me. So uh uh just to tell you a little bit about the trilogy, um, Six Weeks of Love and Larceny was um my debut novel. Um, it just was released right before Christmas time this past year. Um, and it was well received by readers. And so that inspired me to um write a sequel, which is called 12 weeks of love and loss, which um, as you just mentioned, will be released on July 28th. So that's just about to come out. And then um, you know, of course, there was some downtime waiting for those to be published. And so, of course, I had to write 16 weeks of Love and Lies to close out the trilogy.

SPEAKER_00 1:45

So My goodness.

unknown 1:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:48

What a brand that is.

SPEAKER_02 1:51

So the trilogy does follow the same characters through these different periods in their life and the changing circumstances that um arise along the way.

SPEAKER_00 2:01

That's so 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?

SPEAKER_02 2:09

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 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 like this story and I like these people. Like I, uh, you know, I'm gonna keep writing. So uh, you know, then I uh 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, oh, 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 12 weeks starts on that same day.

SPEAKER_01 3:00

So you I love that. That's yeah.

SPEAKER_02 3:04

So it it's the same scene, just from a different perspective, that opens up 12 weeks and then it it follows these characters through the the next cycle of you know their lives together.

SPEAKER_01 3:16

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. Right. Not in time in the book. So how was that of like literally like jumping like feet first back into it?

SPEAKER_02 3:35

You know what? I I hate to say this, but I found it to be easy because um, you know, I already knew the characters, they were already developed. Um, and so I I felt felt like I knew them and I've felt like I knew how they would react in certain circumstances, etc. And so it just 12 weeks built really quickly for me. Like it just kept moving. And 12 weeks is has much more of a sort of thriller bent to it than six weeks did. It's all held together by a very strong sisterhood between two sisters.

SPEAKER_01 4:12

I I think the most interesting part about you describing your books is that it's like a Venn diagram from hell 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 yeah.

SPEAKER_02 4:34

Well, it's actually quite intimidating with the you know, volume of books that are published every day. I'm glad I didn't actually know that before I started writing this. I probably wouldn't have done it.

SPEAKER_00 4:46

Very intimidating. It's very, yeah, for sure. But I think that honestly, that's where the genre is go going. Like that's where 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 um 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, um and uh 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 months? Like, are you okay? Are you are you surviving this? How has it been?

SPEAKER_02 5:49

Um Well, I I write surprisingly fast. Um first of all, I as I 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. Uh 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 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 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 I think it was because, again, it was just the first draft, and I then had to go back and perfect everything. Um, 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 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 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 12 weeks.

unknown 7:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 7:41

When so when I found um an editor that um that I was happy with and trust and everything, the 12 week was already well underway.

SPEAKER_01 7:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 7:52

So that's how come it's happening so fast.

SPEAKER_01 7:54

Yeah, that's true. That's true. Like that's a logical kind of yeah. 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, oh, I'm delirious. Um, and like what do I do now?

SPEAKER_00 8:12

Yeah, I totally can understand that. Um, well, this book is getting really amazing reviews. I've like read all of them. And um, people love specifically the the dynamic between the sisters. Um, 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 of that when I read your when I was researching your books, and I was like, oh 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. How many sisters do you have?

SPEAKER_02 9:01

I just have one, um, but she's my only sibling. So it's just the two of us, and we've always had a strong relationship. Um, so uh I understand sisterhood and I appreciate it and love it. And so it's something that is very natural for me to write about. Um and I didn't know that. I didn't know that sister stories were a big thing right now. So I guess I just kind of lucked out with writing about that. Um, and I I like to write strong women because um 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 um translates into the world, et cetera. Um, so that all sort of came very natural to me. I didn't really have to think about that too hard.

SPEAKER_01 9:49

So it it felt like a very fluid dynamic of uh the like storytelling that you were coming up with.

SPEAKER_02 9:56

Yeah, and I mean these characters are fictional. I I made them up, but they're real. That's um, 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 um, you know, just pieces of experiences along the way.

SPEAKER_01 10:33

Yeah, I love how you can almost reread your work and be like, that's what I experienced that day. That's what they experienced, and I watched them experience it.

SPEAKER_00 10:45

That day. Yeah. Writing that day.

SPEAKER_01 10:48

Um I wanted to definitely a mood writer.

SPEAKER_00 10:51

Yeah, first yeah, oh, yeah, we all are. Uh I also want to touch on the audiobook aspect of um because you have your audiobook for six weeks is coming out. You said by the end of the summer, mid-August. Um so that's also really exciting for you as well.

SPEAKER_02 11:10

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. Um, you know, and anybody 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 uh to do it. Um, and of course, this is my first, 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 um, 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's just it I stumbled. I tried to do it, and literally just reading the first chapter took me like five times to get it. You know, and it's I wrote it. I mean, I should be familiar with the content, you know, but it it it was harder than you would think. Yeah. Have either of you ever done an audiobook?

SPEAKER_00 12:34

Kate's working on hers. And you're working on hers, but I'm but I'm not like my husband has a recording, like he's a sound developer, like 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 want to play all the characters.

SPEAKER_02 12:51

Well, yeah. And then you have to try to change your 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.

SPEAKER_00 12:59

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 um different types of authors, like indie authors, hybrid authors, small print that are exploring how to do audiobooks. Um, and it seems not as straightforward as you think it is. Um Right.

SPEAKER_02 13:25

Well, because some and I 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, oh my God, no, that's so boring. That would put me to sleep. So it's really there's a lot of personal preference that comes into it.

SPEAKER_01 13:47

Yeah. And you need to strike a, you know, screw it. We should just like interview uh audiobook narrator at this point.

SPEAKER_00 13:54

Yeah, no, we need to get an audiobook narrator for sure, because this is like a whole we could talk for another hour about that experience. Um anyway, I just want I want you to um pitch do you want to pitch six weeks? Do you want to pitch 12 weeks?

SPEAKER_02 14:10

Well, I I can talk a little bit about six weeks and then um how that leads into to 12 weeks, since 12 weeks will be the next released. Um it also it all began with with six weeks, and it is a a love story with a criminal twist, so to speak, um, that stars two sisters living in Philadelphia. They're in their early 20s, and they are um 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. Um, so they are together, you know, dealing with life's ups, downs, and in-betweens. Um, the older sister, her name is Lauren, and she's a cub reporter for the Philadelphia Inquirer, and she writes um a lifestyle column called uh Philly's Top 10. So she writes about Philly's top 10 brunch spots, Philly's top 10 sandwich spots, like you know, whatever, Philly's top 10. Um, 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. Um, and there is an unexpected romance that uh develops with Nikki, the younger sister, um, that leads to some confusion and uh betrayal and suspense that ultimately leads to danger. And uh Lauren has an intern named Amanda, who is um, you know, trying to be a good intern and really show that she can do more than write for this lifestyle column and brings an 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.

unknown 16:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 16:19

Very successful. That lead that leads into 12 weeks, which again, as I mentioned earlier, starts three years later with these same characters, and um there is an opportunity that 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.

SPEAKER_01 16:56

These poor sisters.

SPEAKER_02 16:57

Why not? Well, and then and then with 16 weeks of Love and Lies, which again won't be out until next year, um, it kind of wraps their story up. But I mean, I got to the point that I was like, I have to wrap these girls up because how much can really happen to these girls? I mean, the poor things, you know.

SPEAKER_01 17:17

Soon there's gonna be like a documentary about them, like whole thing.

SPEAKER_02 17:23

Um, and all three novels take place in Philadelphia. So the the books have a lot of um iconic locations in them. There's a lot of Philly lingo, um, a lot of Philly cuisine, you know, there's a lot of fit the Philly fandom because, you know, Philadelphia's 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, 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 um a personality of its own um 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 um, you know, they fit authentically into the space.

SPEAKER_01 18:23

Absolutely. And it you want to 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 yeah, minus the bad stuff.

SPEAKER_02 18:38

Yeah. Yeah, that part, that stuff I made up. But a lot of the story is is rooted in my own experiences. Um, Warren, the older sister in the story, was a graduate of University of Delaware, and that's where I went to school. Um, the girls grew up in a small town in North Jersey. Um 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. So um 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 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.

SPEAKER_00 19:19

Yeah, and it makes it feel authentic.

SPEAKER_02 19:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 19:23

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 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. Um awesome. And then where can we get it?

SPEAKER_02 19:49

Um, so six again, 12 weeks will be released next month. So it's not currently available, but will be shortly. Um, and 12 weeks is available at um Amazon.com, BarnesandNoble.com, bookshop.org, or you know, wherever books are sold. You can order it off my website at Rebecca GouldByerly.com. Um, and you can follow me on social um at RGBooks on Facebook or at Becky Byerly on Instagram um for updates on you know release dates and uh other places to purchase the book.

SPEAKER_00 20:27

Thanks for listening to this episode of the Limelight. If you would like your book featured in an upcoming Thursday episode, please visit our website, marksandmanuscripts.com. Cheers.