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What happens when a Regency-era duke accidentally time-travels to 2025 Chicago? In today’s episode, Bryn Donovan joins me to talk about Her Time-Traveling Duke — a magically cozy, Chicago-set romcom that blends Regency charm, modern vibes, and a touch of science-meets-spellwork chaos.

We chat about Bryn’s life as a former greeting-card writer, why the Art Institute of Chicago feels like pure magic, how she built a low-stakes, lightly-magical world, and the romance titles she’s loving right now. If you love Bridgerton, cozy fantasy, or romcoms with heart, spice, and smart heroines, this one’s for you.

📚 BOOKS MENTIONED 

Her Time-Traveling Duke by Bryn Donovan — Contemporary Romance | Time Travel | Light Magic — Audio ✅

Her Knight at the Museum by Bryn Donovan — Contemporary Romance | Light Magic | Museum Setting — Audio ✅

Love Is an Open Book by Chandra Blumberg — Contemporary Romance | Slow Burn | Pining — KU  ✅ / Audio ✅

When Grumpy Met Sunshine by Charlotte Stein — Contemporary Romance | Slow Burn | Steamy — KU  ✅ / Audio ✅

The Accidental Pinup by Danielle Jackson — Contemporary Romance | Chicago-Set | Body Positivity — Audio ✅

Payback’s a Witch (Thistle Grove #1) by Lana Harper — Paranormal Romance | Cozy Magic | Small Town — Audio ✅

The Dead Romantics by Ashley Poston — Contemporary Romance | Ghostly Twist | Grief & Healing — Audio ✅

The Seven Year Slip by Ashley Poston — Magical Realism | Romance | Time Bend — Audio ✅

The Spellshop by Sarah Beth Durst — Cozy Fantasy | Bookish Magic | Low Stakes — Audio ✅

🕒 TIMESTAMPS

[00:00] – Introduction to the episode & why this book is such a fun mashup

[00:44] – Bryn’s background: greeting-card writer, Hallmark Channel, blogger

[01:35] – Introducing Her Time-Traveling Duke and how it fits in the series

[02:10] – Why this world blends Regency charm with modern Chicago

[02:55] – Elevator pitch: magic meets science, sunshine meets grumpy

[03:40] – The time-travel mistake: why the duke is not happy to be in 2025

[04:25] – The painting twist & how magical rules affect the museum

[05:00] – Building a lightly magical world set in real Chicago locations

[06:00] – The Art Institute of Chicago: why it feels like pure magic

[07:10] – Laura and Bryn’s shared museum nostalgia

[08:15] – Bryn’s reading tastes: romance, fantasy roots, poetry, history

[09:20] – Discussing magic systems, research, and Regency details

[10:15] – Romance recs: pining, slow burn, smart dialogue

[11:00] – Chicago-set romance picks Bryn loves

[11:45] – Cozy fantasy favorites (Ashley Poston, Lana Harper, Sarah Beth Durst)

[12:50] – Why “low stakes” in fiction still feels high stakes in real life

[13:40] – Talking about book one in the series & FBI/“low stakes-ish” chaos

[14:25] – Where to find Bryn online + her upcoming YouTube reboot

[15:00] – Closing + reminder to check out the blog for more recs

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Bryn Donovan and Laura Yamin

===

This book is for you. In this episode . We talk about brand's out , greeting card job that she had, and many more recommendations for you to binge on. So enjoy this episode. Thank you so much for listening. Bye.

Laura Yamin: Hi, Bryn Welcome to What podcast.

Bryn Donovan: Thanks so much for having me.

Laura Yamin: So happy to have you here. Tell us a little bit about yourself.

Laura Yamin: Oh my gosh, I love this.

Bryn Donovan: Yeah.

Laura Yamin: so much to talk about. So

Bryn Donovan: Yeah.

Laura Yamin: does that mean? Do you just write little slogans and stuff like that for green cards or,

Bryn Donovan: Yes, absolutely. Greeting card messages books for kids. I wrote about 10 kids books. Just anything that gets copy. Audit.

Laura Yamin: yes.

Bryn Donovan: Yeah.

Laura Yamin: That's awesome. So let's talk about her tribe traveling Duke. So

Bryn Donovan: Yes,

Laura Yamin: is

Bryn Donovan: that's.

Laura Yamin: it's part of the, there's a knight book that's her first book in the series, but they can be read standalone. There's

Bryn Donovan: Absolutely. Yes.

Laura Yamin: them out of order. You can

Bryn Donovan: Yes,

Laura Yamin: The time trialing Duke and then go back to the first book to

Laura Yamin: like that.

It's a little bit, I would say it has a little bit world building, but it's set reality of Chicago,

Bryn Donovan: Yes.

Laura Yamin: great. So if you're interested a little bit out of this world, like maybe some magical things are happening but you don't wanna feel like you're spending too much time with it just

Bryn Donovan: Yeah.

Laura Yamin: you that sense.

Bryn Donovan: Yeah.

Bryn Donovan: Yes. Yes,

Laura Yamin: is like the perfect teaser. As I was telling you, it was like a perfect teaser for Bridgeton coming back because we do get the sensibilities of the pop modern music, but with Regency style.

Bryn Donovan: definitely. Yeah, absolutely.

Laura Yamin: So

Bryn Donovan: Yeah.

Laura Yamin: us about like her time traveling. Duke, what is elevator pitch? I think I shared like the high levels.

The next thing she knows, she has this Duke from the early 19th century. Standing in her apartment and he is not happy to be there.

Laura Yamin: No.

Bryn Donovan: So then he feels bad. She doesn't know how to get him back right away. And they have to work together to get him back into his own time.

Laura Yamin: Yes, and he actually wanted to turn double backwards, not

Yeah. Yeah.

Laura Yamin: Yeah, so

Is like back to the future out of order. Then where I think about

Bryn Donovan: yes. Yeah.

Laura Yamin: it's like he's actually moving forward and still going backwards,

Bryn Donovan: Yeah.

Laura Yamin: reality is that he wanted to go the. And it's a, it's magical and systems, and there's a painting. And the painting he's actually in a pa.

The painting

Bryn Donovan: Yes.

Laura Yamin: but it's not because of him, which is surprising at a time. That was the whole point of him being in the museum and being him

Bryn Donovan: Yeah.

Laura Yamin: It's actually the painter, actually one who.

Laura Yamin: Yeah.

Bryn Donovan: so now they have a painting in the museum that the Duke is missing from. Yeah.

Laura Yamin: So talk to us about how, what led you to create this world, because this world is it's a little bit magical. At the same time we're setting in a real institution with the Art Institute of Chicago and it's very Chicago, which I love, even though I was barely there. Maybe I'll go back to the future or maybe I'll go back to the past. Try it. Talk to us about creating this world and setting up, because you're meshing up different genres into this what is contemporary, but it's a little bit of other genre matchups. Yeah.

Laura Yamin: Yeah.

The Art Institute of Chicago, to me, it is a magical place. So when I was little, we took a trip. I grew up in, in central Illinois and we didn't travel much, but we took a trip to Chicago as a family. And the first time I went into the Art Institute of Chicago. And I saw the George O'Keefe clouds over the staircase, and I saw the al windows.

If you've seen Ferris Bueller's Day off, you've seen those windows and I would. I just, I get goosebumps talking about this. Literally, I just thought it was just the most beautiful place I'd ever seen. I hadn't seen many places then, but I still feel that way about it. I still think it's just such a wonderful place.

Laura Yamin: Yeah, I love this idea of setting up, I have been to checkout the Art Institute to checkout a couple times and it's, I think it's magical. And don't get me wrong, I've been to the med multiple times in a

Bryn Donovan: Yeah.

Laura Yamin: because I live in New York, but I found out that Chicago, like it was just like this place of spending a day and just. , It doesn't feel crowded as other museums. And it

Bryn Donovan: Yeah.

Laura Yamin: you just to browse around and to spend time and exploring and seeing exhibits and seeing like the, like what it actually offers.

Bryn Donovan: That is so right. I'm so glad to hear you say that it is actually huge and it's the biggest collection of impression to start outside of. Paris. It's just enormous. But yes, you feel like you could, you're not being shuffled along, that you're just this independent person who can just wander and have it, you, yeah. Yeah.

Laura Yamin: I think that's like the beauty of it. So if you're ever in Chicago, I think you must have a must up here.

Laura Yamin: the Museum of Natural History.

Bryn Donovan: Yeah.

Laura Yamin: I'm not sure of the name, there's also yeah.

Bryn Donovan: Yeah. The Field Museum.

Laura Yamin: Museum. Both are gray, but I think the Art Institute, I would say prioritize,

Bryn Donovan: It's so wonderful. Yeah. Yeah.

Laura Yamin: Brent, talk to us about the books you read.

You read, like what kind of books do you tend to read?

Bryn Donovan: I do read in my own genre, so I do read Contemporary Romance, but I read. Almost every kind of book there is. I won't read Diet or personal finance. Those are the only two things I don't care about.

Laura Yamin: That's fine.

Bryn Donovan: The only two, everything else I'm curious about. And so my first love was fantasy, which probably comes through, in this writing.

Like even my character Rose is plump, she's not so perfect. You know what I mean?

Laura Yamin: Yeah.

Bryn Donovan: And, yeah, when I actually started reading it, I realized there was a lot more to it to that. So I came to romance a little bit late, but I read all kinds of, so I read mystery literary fiction.

My MFA is in poetry, so I read poetry and history, a lot of history. And another weird books. I read a lot of neuroscience and brain science. Yeah. Just a real big range. Yeah.

Laura Yamin: I love this. Yeah, I can see the fantasy working in this book, at least in this like the magic system. The magic

Unquote

Bryn Donovan: yeah.

Laura Yamin: But there's also this sense of the Jane Austen Regency takes and

Bryn Donovan: yes.

Laura Yamin: it, like the different specific, because he has a passion astronomy and actually like building that.

Space continuum. So I can see that

Bryn Donovan: Yeah.

Bryn Donovan: Yeah.

Laura Yamin: Today's reality, which is a contemporary romcom and the spiciness and all the elements that we love about a romcom,

Bryn Donovan: yes. Yeah. Yeah. It took a lot of research too, because I had to figure out what did he know about the universe in his time, and of course I wasn't gonna embrace any scientific theories about time travel, but I wanted to be familiar with them.

Laura Yamin: Yeah.

Bryn Donovan: you,

Laura Yamin: Yeah.

Bryn Donovan: So it took a lot of research. Yeah.

Laura Yamin: All right, so let's talk some book recommendations. Do you have any books to recommend or listeners to pick?

Bryn Donovan: Absolutely. So even though I read all across Genres, I will stick to romance for this. I will say Love is an open book by Chandra Bloomberg that came out this year. Okay. So two that have. A lot of pining, but this first one is sweet. And then the second one is steamy. So pick whichever one you want, but there's a slow burn with a lot of pining.

Yeah. Sarah Dur. I'm sorry, I can't remember.

Laura Yamin: put the show,

Bryn Donovan: Yes.

Laura Yamin: The show notes. Don't worry about it. The

Will have the

Bryn Donovan: yeah. But which is more, maybe more fantasy. But but those were some that I just really loved. Yeah.

Laura Yamin: Yeah, that, that's a, like a cozy fantasy. So it's still it's not, it's again, it's not this like high stakes fantasy where

Low stakes, like your nervous system will actually, thank you for reading this.

Bryn Donovan: absolutely. And it's a funny thing about low stakes romance because sometimes if you're watching a movie that's low, low stakes or reading a book. Sometimes I'll think about it and think, okay, I'm, I'm watching a movie and she's gotta pull off the Pumpkin festival. But if I was in charge of it in real life, it would feel like high stakes.

Laura Yamin: Yes.

Bryn Donovan: So a lot of what we call low stakes, like in real life, you would feel,

Laura Yamin: Yes.

Bryn Donovan: Pretty anxious about it,

Laura Yamin: Yes. As someone who used to plan events for a living,

Bryn Donovan: right.

Laura Yamin: like stressful. It is

Bryn Donovan: Yeah. Like book one in this series. Her night at the museum, like you would call it low stakes. Nobody's going to, nobody's gonna die. No one's shooting at them, but there's a statue that's missing, and Emily wants to get a job here, and she's the prime suspect for stealing the statue.

Like in real life, that would make you anxious.

Laura Yamin: Yeah, she actually has to talk to an FBI and

Bryn Donovan: Yeah.

Laura Yamin: Simple thing. It's not as fun as it does.

Bryn Donovan: Oh. But I think the whole, the thing is part of low stakes, I think is just the whole tone of it, where even if she's talking to an FAI agent, you're like, things aren't gonna get really grim, yeah.

Bryn Donovan: The whole tone of it lets you know that you're safe. We're not gonna,

Laura Yamin: Yes.

Bryn Donovan: yeah. Yeah.

Laura Yamin: Awesome.

Tell us we're gonna find online.

Bryn Donovan: Oh, sure. Mainly honestly everywhere, but mainly my blog, bryn donovan.com. But I am on Instagram, I'm on TikTok, I'm on Blue Sky Facebook. I'm gonna be rebooting my YouTube channel in the new year, so anywhere you like.

Yeah. Yeah. So

Laura Yamin: this to your YouTube channel, but thank you,

Bryn Donovan: yeah.

Laura Yamin: Michelle.

Bryn Donovan: Absolutely. Yes. Thank you so much. It's wonderful. Yeah.

Thanks for listening to the What three next. For more book lists, cozy reads and library tips, visit the what three Next block.com. Your next great read might be waiting there.