HTML code in featured content text

Thanks for the great theme! I just purchased the pro version to get more featured content options for the home page, and I like it. Is it possible for me to add html content to the featured content image description text for styling, linking, etc.? For instance, when I mention a book, I would like to italicize the title. And, I would like to link some text. I am well versed in html and css, but nothing seems to work in this featured content text area except text. By the way, I would have used the featured page option to get html content, but that does not bring in the featured image, and I really want images with text in these columns on the home page. Are there shortcodes available to add this functionality, or some other way to at least stylize and link text? Thank you for your help!