What do you do when the book you're supposed to publish next is one you can't stand behind?

This week, on release day for Yes Chef, romance author Grace Reilly tells us about the book she almost had to publish instead — 80,000 words she wrote, hated, and walked away from — and the restaurant-world romance that came out of starting over. From Kitchen Confidential and The Bear as research material to what it actually looks like to tell your editor "no," Grace gets honest about a year most authors don't talk about publicly.

Grace joins Jenna and Cait to unpack the real timeline behind Yes Chef: a scrapped manuscript, a full year without a release, and the fear of being forgotten in a publishing landscape that rewards volume. From there, the conversation moves into the food-world research that shaped Fable and Jack's character, the real Treasure Coast restaurant that inspired the book's setting, and the specific tension of being both the artist and the marketer of your own work.

For writers, this episode is a candid look at what it means to protect your name from a project that isn't working. For readers, it's a peek behind Yes Chef's grumpy-chef, forced-proximity romance and the real restaurant that inspired Fable.

In This Episode

• Why Grace scrapped 80,000 words of a finished manuscript
• Telling her editor she didn't want to publish the book
• Kitchen Confidential, The Bear, and researching restaurant culture
• The real Treasure Coast restaurant that inspired Fable
• Writing Poppy and Jack's dynamic: the artist vs. the marketer
• Why "content" and "art" are two different modes for authors
• How romance readers use trope labels to set expectations
• Balancing multiple projects and subgenres at once
• Trusting that a book's reception isn't a verdict on its quality
• What it's like to release a book you have zero regrets about

Yes, Chef

Grace Reilly

A disgraced chef returns to his hometown to save his family's restaurant — and finds himself forced into proximity with the sharp-tongued marketer determined to save it her way. Grumpy sunshine, found family, and a love letter to the misfits who find belonging in a kitchen.