When Life Breaks Open, Hope Still Finds a Way
Based on true events, Julie Francis writes a deeply human series about addiction, illness, marriage, and faith told with honesty, grace, and compassion.
About Julie Francis
Julie Francis is the author of the Room 11 series, a collection of books based on true events that explore addiction, illness, marriage, and faith through a deeply human lens.
Her writing is shaped by lived experience. For over thirteen years, Julie walked alongside her husband, Shaun. Seven of those years were rife with addiction, medical trauma, and recovery. Shaun endured repeated hospitalizations, comas, and significant brain trauma, experiences that altered not only his health but the rhythm of their family life and the dynamics of their marriage. During these years, Julie found herself navigating fear, caregiving, advocacy, and motherhood all at once, often without a map for what came next.
Julie does not write from a place of having it all figured out. Her work reflects the reality that healing is rarely linear, faith can be quiet and questioned, and love often requires boundaries as much as devotion. She writes for those who have loved someone through addiction or illness, for caregivers who learned medical language before they were ready, and for anyone who has sat in waiting rooms wondering how to stay strong when everything feels fragile.
Today, Julie continues to write with the same intention that guided Room 11: to offer honesty without judgment, hope without platitudes, and companionship to readers who may feel alone in their own difficult seasons.
About Room II
The Heart of the Story
Based on true events, our story is not one of perfection.
It is a story of survival, understanding, and choosing love when it would have been easier to walk away.
Room 11 holds the story of addiction, hydrocephalus and infections, and fear colliding all at once. It follows a husband fighting his body and his past, a wife learning how to stand firm while her heart is fractured, and a child whose joy became a lifeline. What carries them through is not dramatic faith but quiet, steady belief in light, even when the tunnel feels endless.
This series is for anyone who has loved someone through addiction, illness, or profound change, and wondered how to keep going.
About Book Two
After Room 11, life does not return to normal. It becomes something else entirely.
The second book follows the long, unremarkable work of healing, where survival gives way to sobriety, and crisis gives way to routine. Shaun stops drinking without fanfare. Recovery unfolds not through declarations, but through early mornings, kept promises, and a steadiness that slowly rebuilds trust. Julie learns that healing does not always arrive dramatically; sometimes it shows up as consistency.
This book is about marriage after trauma. It is about learning how to speak honestly, how to listen without defensiveness, and how to let boundaries exist without letting love disappear. There are no clean endings here -only the choice to stay, again and again.
About Room 11 –The Companion Workbook & Journal
This companion workbook was created for those who find themselves walking alongside someone they love through addiction, illness, or recovery, often without preparation or support.
Written from lived experience, the workbook offers space to process what it means to become a caregiver, advocate, and decision-maker in moments of crisis. It gently guides readers through understanding medical environments, navigating changing relationships, setting boundaries without guilt, and holding faith in the waiting rooms where answers feel distant.
This is not a guide designed to fix or rush healing. It is meant to sit beside you—to help you breathe, to give your thoughts somewhere safe to land, and to remind you that even in exhaustion and fear, you are not alone.
Testimonials
What Readers Are Saying
Jonathan C.
“This book made me feel seen in a season where I felt invisible.”
Mila F.
“A rare kind of honesty. Gentle, brave, and deeply human.”
Julia T.
“Not just a story -an anchor.”
You Are Not Alone
You don’t have to be strong here.
You don’t have to have answers.
If these pages remind you that you’re not alone then they are doing what they were written to do.