All the kicks in the feels in this one.

This is my first book by this duo and I imagine because this may be the first of their books to be categorized as an adult romance. It almost borderlines the romance edge, but since it meets the requirement (HEA/HFN) I’ll let it stand in the contemporary romance category. The main plot is the subsequent coming together of two authors whose co-writing experience produced the most amazing literary fiction, until they fell apart.

What I liked, all the feels. Main characters Katrina and Nathan put me through the ringer with their tumultuous past and present. From Katrina’s anxiety in regard to writing and achieving her dreams to Nathan’s frustration at not being able to be his best in his career without Katrina. These two spar repeatedly over and over, as they work through their frustrations and attraction towards another.

There is a lot of muck to unpack and relationships to mend in this story as well, which plays to the interesting parts of human nature. How sometimes we’ll cut ties with people and leave them wondering where they went wrong without ever having a conversation. Only to realize years later the possible slight may have been interpreted incorrectly or come from a place of good intention.

What held me back? The time jumps. This story constantly goes from present to past and back again. While it’s necessary for the story the authors are telling I found it to be a little too much for me. Only a few authors can get away with this back and forth and have me not getting tripped up by it. In this case, as we got past fifty percent and we’re still jumping, I noticed it would pull me out of the story. Made me almost want to skip those pieces and just get to the here and now. Again, this is all personal. For those of you who love a good back and forth, this is the perfect book for you.

Overall, the read was enough to ensnare me. I stayed up far too late into the wee hours desperate to know if Nathan and Katrina would ever forgive each other and embrace a future where they could both write books to popular acclaim and be together. If you enjoy Kate Clayborn this one might be the book for you.

~ Landra

Katrina's and Nathan's story was a joy to read. Astory that keeps you on your toes and makes you think. A slow burn for sure, but really, really enjoyable.

I adored this book! This is a true book lovers book. Three years ago Katrina and Nathan were literary stars with an enviable working relationship. They co-authored one of the biggest books of the year, but abruptly their relationship ended leaving their readers wanting more from them and a contract waiting to be fulfilled.
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Separately they are not as successful, but both are apprehensive to work together. As they come back together in their Florida retreat they must put their past behind them and focus on putting out a new best seller all while working through their relationship. Honest, emotional and raw you could feel the tension, fear the unknown and anxiously await their future. I could not have loved this more. This book is full of emotion, grit, forgiveness, hope and general feelings….every damn feeling and I was all in.
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Also, this book also had Harriet as a side character who I couldn’t love more. Everyone needs that one person in your life who is going to call you on your behavior and she’s pure perfection!
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Huge thank you to @berkleyromance for an advanced copy.

Just looking at the cover and description of this book, this is definitely something that should be right in my wheelhouse. Sadly, very sadly, it was not for me.

It felt like it was trying to be something other than what it is: commercial fiction. I don't really know how else to explain it. And I say commercial fiction lovingly - it's about 80% of what I read and love. The story was very slow-paced. The mystery behind their falling out was not enough to propel the story forward and give it enough momentum for me to keep reading. I ended up skimming before ultimately deciding not to finish it.

I also found myself not being able to get over the emotional infidelity. I think if this book had been categorized as general fiction, I might have been able to swallow it a little better, but in romance novels, I find it off-putting when characters have any kind of affairs - whether with each other or with other people. This is a personal preference, and you of course may feel differently.

In the end, not for me, but lots of other people love it, so maybe you will too.

𝘏𝘦𝘢𝘳𝘵𝘧𝘦𝘭𝘵, 𝘥𝘦𝘭𝘪𝘨𝘩𝘵𝘧𝘶𝘭 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘧𝘢𝘯𝘵𝘢𝘴𝘵𝘪𝘤!

I fell in love with this book, it was just what I needed, it was sweet, it was funny, it was sexy, and I loved that the authors wrote it during their honeymoon. A book about books with fantastic characters and plot. You need to read it, I loved it.

Thank you Berkley Romance and NetGalley for this gifted copy.

The Roughest Draft by Emily Wibberley and Austin Siegemend Broka released yesterday January 25, 2022.

𝘙𝘦𝘢𝘥 𝘪𝘧 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘭𝘪𝘬𝘦: 𝘙𝘰𝘮𝘢𝘯𝘤𝘦, 𝘊𝘰𝘯𝘵𝘦𝘮𝘱𝘰𝘳𝘢𝘳𝘺, 𝘉𝘰𝘰𝘬𝘴 𝘈𝘣𝘰𝘶𝘵 𝘉𝘰𝘰𝘬𝘴, 𝘊𝘩𝘪𝘤𝘬 𝘓𝘪𝘵.

https://www.instagram.com/booksandcoffeemx/

Emily Wibberley and Austin Siegemund-Broka break into Adult with their newest romance, The Roughest Draft, a spicy story about two co-writers who loathe each other… or do they?

Two soulmates, wrenched apart

When Nathan and Katrina met at a writer’s workshop four years ago, they hit it off immediately. This led to a co-writing relationship that produced two bestsellers. After the second book, they parted ways, the last book in their contract unfinished.

Without Kat, every novel Nathan has written is a dud. He tries to sell his newest book, and his agent delivers bad news—no one wants it. Although he doesn’t need to write for money, being independently wealthy, Nathan needs to write to keep himself from going crazy. So he agrees to go back to Katrina.

Kat, on the other hand, hasn’t written at all since parting with Nathan. She can’t. She’s paralyzed, terrified, by expectations. Thankfully, her fiance, who is also her agent, has fully supported her. But now she’s sensing that support is starting to slip. He fell in love with a writer, and now that she doesn’t write anymore, Kat worries he will stop loving her. So she commits to write another book with Nathan, to save her relationship.

The two are shipped off to Florida, where they rent a house together and hunker down to write. But writing a romance with someone you hate is just as hard as you think…

This book reminded me why I read YA, not adult
I am an adult, but reading adult books has never interested me, and I think now I understand why. When reading YA, I can put up with a lot of immaturity and bad decision-making, because teenagers are inexperienced. They’re trying everything for the first time and they’re full of emotions they don’t know how to deal with. Of course they make mistakes! These two, however, are adults that still act like teenagers.

Nathan drove me crazy from page one. I think it was his entitled attitude that rubbed me the wrong way, but that problem persisted throughout the pages. Katrina was relatable at first, but as time went on and more of her issues came to light, I just kept wondering, “Why have you not gone to therapy?”

The narrative jumps back and forward between past and present, so you don’t know why they separated until near the end of the book. Once it was revealed, I lost even more respect for these characters. Their issues were not as huge as they implied, and I felt if they had simply communicated better, this whole story would have been avoided. They were unlikable characters, but not the fun kind—just frustrating.

One upside: the prose is stunning
Over the past few years, this husband-and-wife writing team has quickly become one of my favorites. And while I didn’t enjoy this particular story, their prose never disappoints. I could highlight the whole book. Seriously. It’s beautifully written, and often very insightful. I will continue to read every YA these two write—just not their next adult.

This romance was not for me. However, readers are raving about it on every platform. It has struck a chord inside many. So if the story intrigues you, check it out! I hope it resonates with you too.

The Roughest Draft was published on January 25, 2022.

Four years ago, Katrina and Nathan cowrite a best-selling romance book, and they haven’t spoken or seen each other since. Unfortunately, in their contract they have another book that they need to co-write. Katrina and Nathan travel to Florida and spend every night and day where they quickly try to write a new manuscript. They hated each other before, but will they be able to set their feelings aside and write another bestselling book?

I think it’s so fun reading books about books! The Roughest Draft is told through the POV’s of Katrina and Nathan both in present time and four years ago when they were writing their previous book. The book is filled with mixed emotions of hatred, tension and eventually love and passion. It’s not a cheesy rom-com, it’s a realistic story of two people trying to figure out life and second chance romance. It’s the perfect contemporary romance!

A huge thank you to Netgalley and Berkley Publishing for an advance copy in exchange for my honest review.

Two people come together to co-write a book. I have thought about what it would take to co-write a book with someone (I am not an author, so it is just a curiosity). How hard would it be to write your emotions into a book and have someone else want to change it, have different ideas, and critique your words? Katrina and Nathan work together seamlessly. They have their disagreements; they have their misunderstandings, but their book ends up a best seller. Then the publicity starts, and their relationship falls apart only to come together years later to write another book together.

I really enjoyed seeing Katrina and Nathan work together, fight together, and figure out life together. Their story shows how much emotions play into everything we do. The attraction they felt when writing their first book did not disappear when they are back together to write book two. Those emotions just grew in their time apart. I could feel their attraction but even more I could feel the love and respect they had for each other as authors and friends.

The Roughest Draft is an unique and fun look at co-authoring a book written by co-authors. I would imagine some of this book is written from firsthand experience and I love that.

I loved this book! I have so much highlighted that I'll refer back to. There was such beautiful writing and learning that the authors co-wrote this on their honeymoon only makes it more special.

Neither of these characters are perfect but they are perfect for eachother. It was pretty easy to get an idea of what happened in the past but I'm glad we didn't get the full scope of what that was until we'd already spent time with these two. I felt like I really understood both Katrina and Nathan as people, not just as partners or two people headed for a HEA, but as individuals. Such honest feelings within these pages. Ugly, inconvenient, messy, loving, and confusing feelings - Kat and Nathan feel them all and I felt right alongside them. Feelings of love and losing love and finding that love again after you've long put it away.

The stakes were pretty low (had they decided not to be together they probably would have been fine in life) as was the heat (one open door scene but far from smut) but the angst and tension were high. At times even I felt anxious wondering how they were going to get through this.

Thank you so much to Berkley Romance for an advanced copy of The Roughest Draft in exchange for my honest thoughts!

Star Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Genre: Contemporary Romance
Pub Date: January 25, 2022

The Roughest Draft literally swept me away into a romance built on emotional connections and longing...so much longing and pining that the pages were completely full of unfulfilled lust.

I am such a character driven reader, and I completely loved Katrina and Nathan. I identified with Katrina's fear to get everything she wanted out of life and to instead self-sabotage. She had everything in her hands, and she literally gave it up out of fear. Fear for her own success and fear for her feelings for Nathan, and instead, she buried herself in a net of safety. Unfortunately, that net of safety included a total douchebag named Chris who only was out for himself, but sometimes experience is the best teacher I suppose. This book tells the story of Katrina coming into her own power and confidence as much as it tells a romance. And Nathan...be still my heart, but I fell for him just as hard as Katrina did. I loved his casual confidence, his charm, and his complete passion for his craft. It made for one sexy combination!

I really loved the format of this book. I liked the alternating POVs that intertwined with glimpses into the past, and the build-up to the past conflict between Katrina and Nathan was perfection. As the story unfolded, little details were given about the past conflict between the two, and my guesses for what that conflict was were slowly checked off my list. The actual conflict wasn't what I expected, but it had a certain romantic quality that I appreciated. I also appreciated the ethical line the two walked, and I was glued to the pages to see if they crossed it.

I think what I loved most about this book, though, was the romanticism of it all. I was completely sucked in by the way Katrina and Nathan were so emotionally connected, and just the romanticism of the pining between the two was almost too much to handle. This book made me want, long, and hope right along with Katrina and Nathan.

This was an enjoyable slow-burning rom com about Katrina and Nathan and their journey from friends to co-authors to enemies and eventually to lovers. This book has dual perspectives and also has dual timelines, focusing mostly on the events of present day when they’re reluctantly writing a book together again, but also on the events that happened four years ago that led to the end of their friendship and their split as co-authors.

Overall, I really enjoyed this book. It was a good escapist read. I liked how Katrina and Nathan didn’t get together right away and their complicated history. I also loved that it’s authors are married in real life. Knowing that just made the story so much better.

This is probably more of a 2.5 rating, but I rounded up because overall this is a good book. I think I personally just struggled to connect with the two main characters. For a book that deals with a lot of emotion and heart that is clearly evident in the author's prose, the story just didn't grab me like I wanted it to. I did find myself invested in the characters journey and I did want to keep reading the book to find out what happened in the story, so from that perspective I did find the quality of the content engaging.

Former co-writers Katrina Freeling and Nathan Van Huysen are forced to reunite to fulfill their contract for one final book. The last thing either one of them expected was to hole up in the tiny Florida town where they wrote their previous book. Working through the reasons they’ve hated each other for three years isn’t easy while writing romance.

WARNING: Slow burn romance ahead!

The Roughest Draft was a different style of romance for me. In the sense that it had much more angst and longing. But it was not a bad thing! It was a slow start but wow was it SO worth it in the end. I can’t begin to express how impressed I am with the writing in this book! It was absolutely beautiful. The emotions of each character were so raw and real. It was as if Nathan and Katrina’s feelings were my own! I loved the alternating timeline and POV’s so you could see the reasoning behind Nathan and Katrina’s falling out. They may be polar opposites, but Katrina and Nathan bring out the best in one another in the end.

Thank you NetGalley, the authors, and Berkley Publishing/Berkley Romance for my E-ARC!

I couldn't put this book down, I finished it in one go. Sometimes flashbacks feels distracting in books for me, but the use of them here was perfect. Katrina and Nathan's story, and their story within a story, was interesting and compelling and I was rooting for them the whole time. Uncovering exactly what broke up their partnership while also seeing their relationship mending itself and developing into something deeper was really great.

I recommend if you like: second chances, forced proximity, angst.
I do not recommend if you hate: lack of communication, emotional infidelity, pretentiousness.

The Roughest Draft drew me in with the title, cover, and premise. Two authors working on a book together and falling in love, written by an IRL couple? Sign me up.

CW: emotional cheating (past and present), physical cheating (kiss), anxiety

I loved the insight into what it's like to be writing a book with someone else. I just appreciated how real it got in that process. I really liked Katrina and how her fear and anxiety manifested because of how real it felt. Nathan seemed to want to do the right thing, he was just faced with tough decisions and developments.

I struggled with the relationship between Katrina and Nathan, not just because in both the present and flashbacks neither were single, but because it felt like they never communicated clearly with each other. The guise of doing sharing their feelings through writing their books was intriguing but is something I struggled with because I felt like they weren't being honest with each other.

This is a very unique premise that will hopefully help you examine what relationships look like. I wouldn't classify this as a romance, and I think readers would benefit from knowing what to expect going into it.

Regardless, I'm excited to go through their backlog because I've heard great things about this couple's YA books!

Thank you to Berkley and NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Katrina and Nathan both have very distinct voices throughout this book and this is evident in both their POVs and the chapters they write for their book. Both are strong and opinionated characters, something I love to see in books. "The Roughest Draft" is told in alternating POVs that helped define each character and how they both felt toward the other person. It created really great tension while also laying down their backstory as the plot progressed.

The setting is uh-may-zing. The beach, the sun, the breeze, the adorable house, all of it just sounds great and really makes me want to revisit Florida. This little bit of escapism is always nice, but especially in the Minnesota winter during a pandemic.

The plot was a little predictable of course but I mean that because it's a romcom, so obviously the reader knows the general direction the plot will take. The pacing was OK and there didn't seem to be too many filler chapters throughout the book. I don't want to say too much about specific scenes but there were definitely some cute and funny scenes throughout the read.

I did get a little tired of all the references to the Big Past Event that separated Nathan and Katrina in the first place. It seemed to take up a lot of the book and in my head it always sounded something like, "I was almost having a good time with Nathan, but then I remembered what happened..." [end of chapter]. It was a little too dangly for me, if that makes sense? Like here's this little bit of information and wouldn't you like to learn more but you'll have to wait for another 50 or so pages until any new information is revealed! And during those 50 or so pages both POVs basically end with that same "..." feeling. Of course the Big Past Event is revealed eventually but the buildup was a little repetitive and dull at times.

And then, when the Big Past Event is finally revealed, it didn't have the "umph" that I thought it would. It just seemed like both characters weren't willing to discuss their feelings and acted a little childish. That's fine of course and nobody's perfect, I just don't entirely see how it could have caused such a big author duo breakup and the animosity they felt toward each other. What happened was hella awkward and cringey but ultimately something that felt like wrong place/wrong time meets miscommunication, and I very strongly dislike the miscommunication trope. Both characters could have handled the situation better than they did.

This book does a really good job of showing how what we really feel doesn't always come across in our words or actions and can cause lots of drama and hurt feelings. I liked that both Nathan and Katrina had to go through their own conflicts and growth in the years they were apart and the weeks spent together at their Florida writing retreat in order to see from the other person's perspective and realize their own shortcomings. I would recommend giving it a read- if nothing else you'll get to escape this pandemic winter for a little while!

Overall, I enjoyed this book. I thought it was a fresh take for a romance novel. You could tell that the authors drew from their personal experience of writing together which is what intrigued me about this one in the first place. I can see why some people would be bothered by The Roughest Draft, however. The emotional cheating (no physical cheating happened) really was the main premise of the book which I, personally, was able to overlook but I can see why others might not be able to. I found the writing to be really great, so while the story was a bit boring at times (you could clearly tell where this was going), I kept wanting to read more.

Happy pub day to The Roughest Draft by @wibbs_ink and @austins_b

Y’all. I loved this book! I’m a sucker for enemies to lovers stories, and it’s even better when they were really close and had a falling out that caused the hatred.

The built up tension between Katrina and Nathan had me flying through the pages. I needed to know what happened between them in the past. I also loved the little glimpses of love they had for each other that would come through while they were writing their next book.

This gave me big Emily Henry book vibes. I kept thinking of Beach Read and People We Meet on Vacation. I think it was the setting, flashbacks, and ex-friends who used to be best friends that gave me that feeling.

I recommend this book to romcom lovers ❤️

Thank you so much to @netgalley and @berkleypub for this arc! It was a joy to read! ❤️

I could not get enough of The Roughest Draft, a romance following Nathan and Katrina as they work to finish their contract to write one more book together, four years after their falling out following the completion of their last novel. This book is smart and beautifully written. Jumping between present day and four years ago as they wrote their last novel, the voice in this novel was just exquisite. In the flashbacks, they feel younger and more hopeful, energized, and you can feel the strain in their present day. The tension in the present day is built so wonderfully. Katrina and Nathan have so much left unsaid and their collaborative writing puts all their frustration and love laid out in fiction. There’s fire in these pages, it’s one of the best written books I’ve read I think. With Katrina, she’s suffering from crippling anxiety when faced with her success and happiness, and I just that had been explored more in depth—there were parts it felt like it could’ve been deeper. But she is fierce and I loved her growth. And Nathan, he reminded me of a less cynical, more romantic Gus from Beach Read. He is broody and charming. There were times the book felt heavy in the writer analogies, but the comparisons felt so charming and appropriate for Nathan and Katrina, two people whose writing define them and brought them together. And the chemistry of these two together was just wow! It’s not a steamy read but it is sexy and it is smart. It’s funny and endearing, and heartwarming. I just loved it!

This is a Romance. This is a romance between two writers that has a lot between them. This book as several flashbacks through out it. I have to say I did not like how the flashbacks was put in. It was hard for me to go from present day where they are writing a book together, and then go to past where they where writing their first book together. The setting was the same and they where doing they same thing, so it was hard to keep the two timelines apart. I love the present timeline, but I really did not like the flashbacks. I was kindly provided an e-copy of this book by the publisher (Berkley) or author (Emily Wibberley) via NetGalley, so I can give an honest review about how I feel about this book. I want to send a big Thank you to them for that.