Amber Rae’s Loveable Marks a Departure for the Author: ‘For Those Who Are Ready to Break Free’ (Exclusive)

Amber Rae’s next book, Loveable, isn’t about “trading one life or one man for another.” Instead, it’s about what she calls the “painful, beautiful process of coming home to oneself.”

The bestselling author behind Choose Wonder Over Worry is sharing a little insight behind her forthcoming project, as PEOPLE exclusively reveals its cover ahead of its August release.

Loveable offers a departure for Rae, as her new book follows “a woman breaking free from the roles that confined her,” per an official synopsis. The author gets candid about enduring a lonely marriage, leaving her husband for another man after she fell in love again and struggles with addiction, among other personal topics.

“The title Loveable carries a double meaning. For much of my life, I believed I had to earn love by being good — by being easy, perfect or who others needed me to be,” Rae says. “But beneath that was a deeper wound: the belief that I wasn’t truly lovable. And if I wasn’t lovable, how could I ever fully love?”

“The book is about unraveling that belief and realizing that love isn’t something we prove or perform for — it’s something we are, inherently,” she adds. “It’s about the journey from trying to be ‘lovable’ in the world’s eyes to knowing deep down that I already am— and, in turn, finally being able to love freely.”

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And the book’s cover encapsulates that journey, featuring the tagline, “One woman’s path from good to free.”

As Rae explains, she “fell instantly in love” with someone four years ago while married to her then-husband. And while she initially shamed herself as a “bad wife” over her feelings, she was still “trying desperately” to make her marriage work despite it being “lonely, sexless and on life support.”

“I was too afraid to admit my unhappiness to anyone — myself included. I had convinced myself that if I just tried harder, went to more therapy, put more energy into the relationship, everything would fall into place,” she says. “But the harder I tried, the more disconnected I felt from my true needs and desires. I think a lot of people find themselves in this same place — trying to make things work when they are so clearly not working, ignoring their own needs and silencing their inner voice.”

“They feel bad or selfish for wanting more than the life they’ve settled for. I wrote this book for anyone who’s ever found themselves in a cage of their own making — and for those who are ready to break free,” Rae adds.

Per Loveable‘s synopsis, Rae repeatedly told herself that “good wives don’t fall in love with other men” when she, indeed, fell in love with another man while building a home with her husband in Mexico. As a result, Loveable follows that “raw and intimate journey of a woman breaking free from the roles that confined her.”

And it isn’t just Rae’s own story. Instead, she’s calling the book a “rallying cry to stop being good so you can start being free.”

Loveable comes out Aug. 5 from St. Martin’s and now available to preorder, wherever books are sold.