By: Katherine Center
Narrator: Patti Murin
Macmillan Audio
ISBN: 978125028380
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
Publication Date: 06/11/2024
Format: Other
My Rating: 4 Stars (ARC)
Featuring beautiful spray-painted edges with vibrant designed endpapers.
She’s rewriting his love story. But can she rewrite her own?
Emma Wheeler desperately longs to be a screenwriter. She’s spent her life studying, obsessing over, and writing romantic comedies—good ones! That win contests! But she’s also been the sole caretaker for her kind-hearted dad, who needs full-time care. Now, when she gets a chance to re-write a script for famous screenwriter Charlie Yates—The Charlie Yates! Her personal writing god!—it’s a break too big to pass up.
Emma’s younger sister steps in for caretaking duties, and Emma moves to L.A. for six weeks for the writing gig of a lifetime. But what is it they say? Don’t meet your heroes? Charlie Yates doesn’t want to write with anyone—much less “a failed, nobody screenwriter.” Worse, the romantic comedy he’s written is so terrible it might actually bring on the apocalypse. Plus! He doesn’t even care about the script—it’s just a means to get a different one green-lit. Oh, and he thinks love is an emotional Ponzi scheme.
But Emma’s not going down without a fight. She will stand up for herself, and for rom-coms, and for love itself. She will convince him that love stories matter—even if she has to kiss him senseless to do it. But . . . what if that kiss is accidentally amazing? What if real life turns out to be so much . . . more real than fiction? What if the love story they’re writing breaks all Emma’s rules—and comes true?
My Review
Katherine Center, returns following Hello Stranger and The Bodyguard, with her latest captivating and witty romance THE ROM-COMMERS. The novel stands out with its portrayal of an unconventional couple, their messy lives, and their journey toward a heartwarming love story.
Katherine Center is known for her charming novels and movies with witty sparkling dialogue and heartfelt storylines with substance.
She's rewriting his love story. But can she rewrite her own?
About...
Emma Wheeler, a former English teacher and a devoted caregiver to her father, has put her dreams of becoming a screenwriter on hold. Her struggle to balance her family responsibilities and her passion for writing is a poignant and relatable journey that will resonate with many readers.
She had guilt over her mom's death (climbing accident) and her dad's paralysis. She is also the big sister of her 23-year-old younger sister, soon to graduate with her dreams. However, when will Emma's dreams come true? When is her time? Is she procrastinating, trapped in her world of sadness and problems?
Emma's ex-boyfriend, who also happens to be her agent, offers her a chance to work on a romantic comedy with her idol, screenwriter, Charlie Yates. Despite Charlie's initial cynicism and the poor quality of the script, Emma is determined to prove herself and make the project a success.
However, things go differently than planned. Who is this guy? He is bitter, cynical, mean, and disrespectful. The script is terrible, and so is he. Yet, Emma is determined not to give up with a fight.
Emma will convince him that love stories matter. What if the love story they are writing about breaks all Emma's rules―and comes true?
What has she got to lose? She will be honest and tell him everything wrong with his bloody script. What she did not see coming was losing her heart.
Audiobook...
I read the e-book and listened to the audiobook narrated by the talented Patti Murin, offering a fun, lively performance! The audio also features a bonus scene and author's note read by the author. A perfect listen for the beach, your summer vacation, a cozy porch read, or a hammock.
My thoughts...
THE ROM-COMMERS is a delight! With Center's signature style, another cracker of a read, a romance that sizzles with witty banter and depth.
Engaging and endearing, an unlikely pair team up with past burdens, baggage, guilt, family, and disappointments. Their emotional complexities, fears, and vulnerabilities will resonate with you, making you fall in love with these two!
While I am not a big fan of romance or rom-coms, I appreciate Katherine Center's writing and snappy dialogue. Her fearless approach to tackling difficult topics such as loss, grief, sickness, family complexities, careers, and tragedy and her ability to infuse light even in the darkest times is commendable.
Bittersweet, the author skillfully weaves a narrative that pulls on your heartstrings. At times, it is emotional and heartbreaking, but there is also a balance of light, love, hope, joy, fulfillment, and lots of humor, making it a truly engaging romance. A mix of romcom, humor, action, and romance. Soulful, heartwarming, and full of wisdom and life lessons.
While The Rom-Commers isn't a sequel to The Bodyguard; however, Jack does make a cameo appearance as Charlie wrote the screenplay that made Jack famous. (check it out; it's also a fun read).
Recs...
This is for fans of the author's novels and movies and those of Emily Henry, Emily Giffin, and Sherryl Woods. However, none are quite as funny and comforting as KC!
Thanks to St. Martin's Press, Macmillan Audio, and NetGalley for an ARC and ALC in exchange for an honest review.
@JudithDCollins | #JDCMustReadBooks
My Rating: 4 Stars
Pub Date: June 11, 2024
Praise
"Center, the prolific author of many romances, clearly understands what it takes to create a winning romantic comedy and puts Charlie and Emma through many of the most delightful rom-com tropes (enemies to lovers, forced proximity). But the book, like all of Center’s work, doesn’t completely eschew darkness―both Emma and Charlie are dealing with trauma and grief. A winning romance that deftly balances heft and humor."
--Kirkus
"Winsome and charming, Center's latest is that perfect blend of romance and overcoming life challenges that her readers treasure."
--Booklist (starred review)
“This rom-com about a rom-com offers a pretty predictable storyline, but the enjoyment comes from the tongue-in-cheek commentary on its own genre. As Center writes, ‘If you’re surprised by the ending, somebody wasn’t doing their job. We all know where it’s headed. The fun is how we get there.’”
--USA Today
“Grumpy Boy and Sunshine Girl is one of the best tropes and it’s back again in this meta romcom…will the kissing come off the page to the other page? We’ll find out, and I will likely be squealing like a pig throughout!”
--Betches
About the Author
NEW YORK TIMES Bestselling Author Katherine Center wrote her first novel in the sixth grade (fan fiction about Duran Duran) and got hooked. From then on, she was doomed to want to be a writer—obsessively working on poems, essays, and stories, as well as memorizing lyrics, keeping countless journals, and reading constantly.
She won a creative writing scholarship in high school, and then went on to major in creative writing at Vassar College, where she won the Vassar College Fiction Prize. At 22, she won a fellowship to the University of Houston’s Creative Writing Program and moved home to Texas with plans to become Jane Austen ASAP.
Didn’t happen quite that way. Of course. Instead, she began a decade of struggling, agonizing, and questioning the meaning of life before finally finding a fairy-godmother-like agent and getting a dream-come-true book deal for her debut novel, The Bright Side of Disaster.
A total happy ending. And also, just the beginning.
Katherine firmly believes that our struggles lead us to our strengths, and the years of not getting published, she’s decided, were good for her. They forced her to define who she is and what she cares about. They forced her to figure out why she writes at all. They forced her to clarify for herself what she loves in stories as a reader—to create her own definitition of “good writing” from the inside out.
Katherine is constantly thinking about craft, and looking for stories to admire, and working to get better at storytelling—but she’s very careful about what “better” means. For her, getting better as a writer means getting clearer and clearer about what she, herself, loves and looks for in stories—and using everything she knows about writing to do those things in the spirit of service for others.
Katherine believes the single most inspiring thing about the human race is the way life knocks us down over and over and over, but we just keep on getting back up.
She believes the best stories let you get so lost, you forget you’re reading at all—and then you find your way back out a little bit changed.
Katherine also believes joy is just as important as sorrow.
That’s why her stories are always about resilience and struggle and finding ways to savor life’s moments of grace. That’s why her characters joke around so much, even in the shadow of hardship. And that’s why Katherine will never, ever, run the main character over with a bus in the final chapter.
That’s a promise.
Katherine is always looking for reasons to be hopeful, and opportunities to laugh, and ways of getting inspired—both in real life and in fiction. She believes that the only compass you can follow as a writer is to write the story you, yourself, long to read. WEBSITE
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