Guest post written by The Jezebel List author Alisa Dean
Alisa Dean writes romance primarily at her favorite local coffee shop, hopeful that anyone sneaking a peek at her steamy screen will be intrigued and even liberated by stories of love, desire, self-discovery, and partnership. As a university professor, Alisa also writes less-liberating academic articles about how writing works in the world, and she will likely encourage her students to analyze this very bio for its patterns. Alisa favors long walks among very tall trees with her characters for company.
About The Jezebel List: Unleashing her inner Jezebel on camera was not part of Christina Edmondson’s plan, but nobody said rebuilding your life after religious and family trauma was going to be easy. A radical and heartfelt debut that celebrates the pursuit of joy, The Jezebel List is perfect for fans of Abby Jimenez and B. K. Borison. Releases August 25th 2026.
Don’t worry: I am highly aware that “religious trauma” and “rom-com” are not exactly an expected pair. Even I was skeptical of my own idea in the beginning. Who would want to read about something as horrible as religious trauma in an escapist romance? Would any literary agent or editor ever take a chance on a book so out of the mainstream? What if the themes were seen as too “controversial” for a commercial readership?
And yet the idea of a religious trauma rom-com wouldn’t leave me alone. The more I contemplated, the more a romantic comedy seemed like the best genre to unpack the ugly impact of religious trauma that I know far too well as a pastor’s daughter from the Evangelical American South.
But how exactly does one go about writing a religious trauma rom-com? The decisions seemed endless as I set out to write The Jezebel List. Here, I walk through a guide of sorts for how I navigated the choices that led to this religious trauma rom-com, all of which underscore the undeniable power of the romance genre and its many possibilities.
1. Focus on joy
So many expressions of faith in this world are about love, acceptance, and charity. But there are also expressions of faith that are about shame, bigotry, and control. Unfortunately, my story is the latter, and I am not the only one.
I wanted to turn my religious trauma into a gift; as a writer, making others feel seen in our shared human experiences is what I have to offer to the world. So before The Jezebel List, I wrote several personal essays about my religious trauma—how I needed to constantly earn my salvation, how I lived under persistent shame and guilt over natural impulses, how I spent my entire life until my twenties performing on a church stage.
To put it frankly, these essays were sad. They were sad to write, and they were sad to read. How could I write about religious trauma but make it more… fun?
The most obviously fun part of leaving a controlling religious environment behind is all the stuff you can now do—all those regular parts of life that were deemed wrong or bad or damnable. The world is suddenly like an all-you-can-eat buffet after years of subsisting on bread scraps.
Thus, the backbone of my religious trauma rom-com is the Jezebel List. Our FMC Christina creates a list of forbidden activities that were deemed sinful that she plans to check off one by one. Meanwhile, our MMC Danny is an entranced documentarian who is there to witness and amplify Christina’s joy. The list is really the surface-level representation of the deeper hurts and internalized traumas, so it provides a space to explore those hard aspects but in very joyful scenes.
And of course, even the toughest parts of life become a little easier when shared with someone you’re falling for. Banter, flirtations, sly touches, and emerging trust wrap up the hurt in a squeal-worthy package.
2. Set the novel post-therapy
I knew from day one that I did not want this novel to happen smack in the identity break that is often necessary to come out of shaming religious environments. That is a crushing place to be, and it is most likely not a great state of mind to be striking up a romance. I even knew that I did not want this novel to be set in the hard aftermath of that break… the one where your entire world has crumbled and now you have to rebuild your life, rewire every thought, and figure out who the hell you always were.
Instead, this novel begins after Christina has been in trauma therapy for a year. She has done the heavy lifting to believe she is whole as she is. The struggle at this stage, then, is grief. Christina must contend with the grief of her upbringing and the years consumed by shame as she collects the experiences on her Jezebel List and lives fully as herself.
For a woman coming out of a controlling religious environment that only wanted her to be a pious cookie-cutter pastor’s daughter, what could be more intoxicating than a worshipful man who is dedicated to knowing the real her through-and-through? In my estimation, being loved and being known are two sides of the same coin. Romances are thus one of the best spaces to make sense of religious trauma because they are stories of being known, the ultimate gift for someone who was always told who to be instead of asked who they are.
3. Make the story equally cozy and spicy AF
Any highly controlling or guilt-ridden environment can feel like constantly sitting stringently in the world’s most uncomfortable straight-backed chair. I thus wanted this novel to feel like the exact opposite—like cozying up under a heated blanket on a squashy cloud.
The coziness of this novel can first be found in its focus on the everyday: brunches and inside jokes and movie marathons and rainy days and Friday night dinners and long walks and nicknames and reading chairs. These are the day in and day out textures of a romantic relationship, and they also happen to be a soft place to land after religious trauma.
The other cozy aspect of this novel is the found family. For many of us, leaving shaming religious cultures can also mean losing our families—a profound pain in an already gut-wrenching situation. This is the case for Christina, but the found family that has formed around her is a saving grace. She has already found acceptance and laughter in her life: She doesn’t need Danny. She wants him.
But do not be deceived! Just because this novel is cozy does not mean the spice levels are low. On the contrary, The Jezebel List is a steamy celebration of sex. Especially with my brand of religious trauma, sex outside of strict bounds was one of the ultimate taboos. Instead, romance is a space where our identities as beings with bodies and desires can be deliciously indulged. Sex can be dirty and fun and pleasurable and intense and messy and perfect. It can be a reflection of who we are and how we connect, and I love the pages it takes up in this novel to express Christina and Danny’s relationship to themselves and one another.
4. Give the book a provocative title
Jezebel is a Biblical figure who is still referenced in some religious circles to describe women who are selfish, deceptive, and rebellious. Culturally, of course, the term has become a stand-in for any “misbehaving” woman, which many of us—including Christina and me—embrace with pride. In the novel, Christina describes her Jezebel status this way: “I’m a woman who won’t spend one more minute performing, or behaving, or folding myself up to fit anyone else’s expectations.”
The Biblical reference in the title is obviously on purpose per my part. I want to be very clear that this is a religious trauma rom-com, and I also want to reclaim the damning Jezebel designation that was used in my upbringing.
I understand that this novel is taking a stance, but it is a stance I am very proud to take. The novel does explicitly critique Evangelicalism and fundamentalism in the American South (my brands of religious trauma) because, in my estimation, they are in need of critique. I love my Southern home, which makes it worth critiquing.
The ultimate message of this novel is self-acceptance, radical inclusion, and unconditional love, which need not be in conflict with any faith traditions. Romance lets us uncover the shared humanity between all of us; people are what matter, after all.
5. Trust in the happily ever after
It is easy to think that romances are meant to be happy and hopeful, so they are not the place to engage with the hard and ugly parts of life. However, I believe the exact opposite is true.
Romance lets us unravel and process hard things because of the guaranteed happily ever after. We know everything is going to turn okay. That makes it a safe space to lay out our trauma, carefully turn it over, and see it in new lights.
Falling in love means being seen by another person. All of our damage and flaws are on full display, and yet we are worth loving anyway. Is there anything more hopeful? More comforting? More capable of allowing us to accept and digest our traumatic experiences?
At the end of the day, the heart of loving someone else is a renewed journey of learning to love yourself. This is the primary reason I knew I had to write a religious trauma rom-com—because healing from religious trauma is also a journey of learning to love yourself.
Turns out, this odd couple of “religious trauma” and “rom-com” makes a beautiful match. And don’t we love an opposites attract trope?
