How Caylee Hammack Weaves Storytelling Through New Book & Album Pairing ‘Bed of Roses’

Even as a child, singer-songwriter Caylee Hammack realized the power of storytelling. She grew up immersed in stories — whether from the adventures embedded in the songs of musical influences such as Dolly Parton and Kate Bush, or in the pages of Harlequin romance novels she read as a teen.

“I remember in elementary school, I would charge my friends a dollar to tell [them] scary stories or mysteries,” she recalls to Billboard. “It got to the point where I was like, ‘I could build a business from this.’”

The Ellaville, Georgia native first tried to write her own book at age 13 and made another attempt a few years later, ultimately letting that hope go — or so she thought.

“I just told myself, ‘This is never going to be something you can do,’” she says. “And I hate that little voice — that I actually listened to it — but I put that dream away.”

Instead, she made an impact relating her stories through song: releasing her debut country album If It Wasn’t For You in 2020, collaborating with Chris Stapleton on “Small-Town Hypocrite,” recording with Miranda Lambert as part of the ACM Award-winning musical event of the year “Fooled Around and Fell in Love,” and picking up a pair of nominations for the ACM’s new female artist of the year.

But on her latest Capitol Nashville project, Bed of Roses, out today (March 7), Hammack fulfills that childhood dream.

Bed of Roses comes with a companion, a 240-page romance novel. Each book chapter corresponds to a song on the album, such as “No I Ain’t,” “The Pot & The Kettle” and “Bread & Butter.”

Sam, the protagonist in the book Bed of Roses, finds herself stuck in rural Homestead, Texas, after her vintage car breaks down. There she meets Jack, the owner of the only mechanic shop in Homestead. His grandmother offers Sam a place to stay in exchange for help in her flower shop. Sam agrees in a decision that opens her eyes to all the charms of the small town.

“What I wanted to do was hone in a woman listening to her intuition, listening to her gut, and wise women that have come before her and experienced the same things,” Hammack says. “Finding your own community–whether it’s people you’re related to or people that you’ve met along the way that feel as if they’re related to your soul. I just really wanted a romance novel that had a sturdy, steadfast building of love. I love the bad boy tropes, but I’ve loved him a little too much in real life. For once, I would like to have a story where you want to root for the good guy.”

Hammack co-authored the book with one of her long-time favorite writers, New York Times best-selling author Carolyn Brown, who has written more than 140 romance books, including Ladies Room, The Dove, and her most recent, The Party Line, which Hammack calls a favorite.

“We would work 8-10 hours a day or more, just going back and forth. I was a tennis player growing up and I think of it as the most beautiful, consistent volley of ideas and creative energy,” Hammack recalls.

Hammack says the songs on the album chronicle Sam’s story, but also Hammack’s own journey: “If you listen to the album top to bottom, you get my story, my progression through lessons and experiences in the past 10 years. If you listen to it backwards, from bottom to top, and you read the book, then you get [the book’s protagonist] Sam’s story.”

The album is filled with songs that delve into self-love and knowing one’s limits, such as “No I Ain’t.” “I just kind of wrote it from personal experience,” she says. “I wanted one song that I could sing back to myself, or that someone could sing to themselves, where if you’re not strong enough right now to make the decision to love yourself more, that this can be a mantra to choose what is best for you. ‘I’m putting barbed wire around my boundaries,’ meaning I’m going to protect myself.”

Hammack credits her team at UMG Nashville with setting the dual book-album project into motion, noting that the album’s songs were inspired by consistencies in the romance novel genre as a whole — and those songs then sparked the idea for the book itself.

“I had told my label how I had based different songs [on the album Bed of Roses] off romance novels, and the tropes and dynamics of them. I like when tropes are used well and cleverly, so I look at songs as books — there are certain rises and falls you have to hit. [The label executive] had been meeting with a literary agent. I think he misunderstood because he said that I had an idea for a romance novel. But when I heard that this literary agent wanted to meet with me and talk about this romance novel idea, I automatically started thinking of characters and the whole book just exploded in me.”

The digital version of the book Bed of Roses is available now, while physical copies of the book will be released in June. Hammack says that could be just the first in a series of books ahead.

“I have ideas sketched out for two different books coming off this book. I would love to continue the story of the families and the people related around the Bed of Roses. I love captivating people and taking them to another place, opening their mind a bit. That’s what you get to do with music, too. You get to comfort, you get to awaken people, you get to excite people, but you also get to just be a refuge for people if they’re heartbroken. I hope that’s what this album and book is.”

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