This was a solid contemporary romance. A romantic couple coauthors a book about two authors who collaborate and end up in a romantic relationship? It’s a slow-burn and also kind of second-chance romance. I loved the premise behind this and was so excited to be sent an E-ARC! For Emily Wibberley and Austin Siegemund-Broka, it’s my first of their work and it will most definitely not be my last. It touches on some heavy topics, but does so with a raw representation that grips onto you immediately and won’t let go.


*Mild spoilers up ahead mingled in with my thoughts of this book.*





“I understand, genuinely, that I can’t avoid crashing after feeling joy. It’s just the way that I’m made, I know. Depression and anxiety will be there. I can’t simply choose to live without them— like I can’t simply choose to live without riding.”

My heart latched onto Katrina immediately. Unsurprisingly— I love a book with relatable representation of mental health struggles. This story drives into the pain and process of healing through toxicity within relationships and divorce. It’s very heavy at times.

A brief thought is all Chris deserves IMO and that is simply— fuck Chris. I hated him immediately for his selfishness, manipulation tactics, and gaslighting.

“He’s been good to me. He’s been there for me. We might have some ugly furniture, but the house we’re building still feels like it could be home.” As someone who’s been through the grieving journey that is a divorce and unhealthy relationships in general, this quote hit home hard.

Nathan is brilliant and kind. The internal pining made his love for Katrina palpable. The buildup to their relationship alongside the flashbacks created so much tension. It was fantastic! Their romance is slow, but so sweet.

Book Rating: ⭐️🌟⭐️🌟⭐️ 5/5 Stars

Book Review:
This book absolutely captured me from the start and had me sucked in with each new word, description, paragraph, page, chapter, present day telling, flashback, and swap between character perspectives!

This book was easily a 5 star rating for me as I could not urge myself to put it down, nor did I want to, as I wanted to continue to read and figure out alongside Kat and Nathan where this was all going…

The TENSION between these two and the unspoken but written truths of their feelings was… *chefs kiss* … I couldn’t stop hoping that the tension would continue as it was soooo smoldery, but at the same time, hoping that it would simmer allowing for love to come through and for them to find happiness off the pages.

I absolutely loved The Roughest Draft and encourage you to put it on your TBR and prioritize it if you have not had the joy of watching Kat and Nathan’s love story finally jump from the pages of fiction to being fulling in reality.

Thank you NetGalley and Berkeley Books for the ARC of this book! I am so thankful to obtain a copy to read in advance of its release!

Why! I really, really, really wanted to love this book. The delightful cover, the Emily Henry Beach Read/People we meet on vacation vibes, etc. all had this as one of my most anticipated reads of 2022. Unfortunately I did not like the characters at all, found their chemistry lacking and I thought the story took FAR too long to get to the main characters' actual feelings. I can appreciate a slow burn but this was a tad ridiculous and even with that lead up when they do get together it's a little disappointing. Also, the fact that Katrina was doing so much just to please her fiance and then doesn't dump him when she really needed to near the beginning of the book just put my back up. Sadly not one I will be recommending. The premise had such potential but the execution fell very flat. Much thanks to NetGalley and Berkley for the opportunity to review this book early. My opinions are my own.

This was a simply lovely book about opportunities lost and found. Since it's a romance and you know it's got to have a happy ending (right????), I didn't expect to feel so much tension about how everything would end, and it was almost bittersweet to finish this book--I wanted to live in that tension even longer. Very satisfying.

Well I’m going to preface this review by saying I initially rounded up to 3 stars. Not really sure why because I really couldn’t get into this. And the more I thought about it, I knew I couldn’t give it 3 stars. It just didn’t make sense in my rating scheme so I bumped it back down to 2 and feel better about that. I know how hard it must be to write a book because I struggle just with writing reviews, but oof this just didn’t really work for me. I can’t even 100 percent put my finger on why, other than it felt clunky and disjointed and left me thinking about DNF a couple of times. There was no chemistry, there was forced emotions, and the characters were all so unlikeable that it was kind of unbearable.
I went into it with expectations of this being on par with Emily Henry’s beach read because it is ultimately the same premise. But sadly, it was not.
Katrina and Nathan have co authored a book that had massive success several years ago. They have a contract to write one more book together, but they have been putting it off because of the experience they each had during the writing process. Once Katrina’s fiancé (who is also her agent) puts pressure on her to fulfill the contract and write the next book because he needs the money, the books started spiraling for me. Katrina agrees (what?! Dump the loser!) and she heads to the retreat to write with Nathan and they are forced to face their reality while writing a book about divorce, they realize that they’ve been in love this whole time and couldn’t face it. (Obvious much?) So they work out their relationship by writing about it through the characters.
I’m gonna leave it at that because I feel like I’m getting harsh and it doesn’t deserve that lol. Maybe it’s just that to me, the book itself is a rough draft that needs some work.
Thanks to Penguin Random House and NetGalley for this arc in exchange for my review.
Publication date: January 25, 2022

Nathan and Katrina are co-authors who had a massive blow up 4 years ago after finishing their second novel. Now they are being forced by their agents to come back together and write the third contracted novel together.

One of the most interesting parts of this book to me is how much this must parallel the real authors’ experiences. I’m curious which of these writing techniques they use when they write books together and it leant a reality and trust to this book that I really liked.

I loved Nathan and Katrina’s chemistry from the beginning, as well as hated her fiancé. Throughout the story, the reader is left wanting to know what exactly caused Nathan and Katrina to separate and not speak for 4 years. It is revealed slowly through flashbacks to their last writing experience 4 years ago, and in my opinion the reveal is a little too slow. Especially since the reason seems pretty obvious. I wish that it had gotten put out in the open a little sooner in the book but it worked well for the story.

There is another character, Harriet, who was friends with both Nathan and Katrina until their blow up. At one point she says that she feels like they only kept her around as a friend when they needed her for the two of them and this felt true for the story. I liked the small amount that she was in the story, but it felt like she was only written as a tool for Nathan and Katrina to deal with their stuff and not as a character within her own right. She very much could’ve not been in the book at all and it wouldn’t have been effected.

I initially had a few issue with why Nathan and Katrina were having the difficulties they were having, but realized that I have had some similar issues with trust and failures. I found parts of the story to be repetitive and thin it could’ve been cut down a little. It didn’t have that same spark I find in their YA books, but I still enjoyed it and it was a good, fun love story.

The writing was solid and enjoyable. I may have had too high of expectations for this book which might’ve been why I didn’t completely love it. It also may be that they have some kinks to work out in the adult writing context Either way, they are still one of my favorite writing duos and if this book sounds interesting to you, you will not be disappointed.

TYSM to Berkley & NetGalley for my copy of this book.

I went into this story fairly blind, which I think made the first couple of chapters a bit slow to start for me. However, once we were able to dive a bit deeper into the inner workings of both Nathan and Katrina's minds, I was hooked. The way Emily and Austin were able to craft desire, anger, hope, and love within their characters (who were also writing for their characters) was remarkable. I found myself highlighting many passages within the pages of this novel, knowing that I'd want to return to these words again and again.

I now only wish we could read the novels that fictional characters of Nathan and Katrina wrote together.

The cover of the book says something different. I'm glad I didn't read the synopsis because the story took me by surprise despite being a bit predictable.

The book tells us about is about Katrina and Nathan, how they met and how they became co-writers. However, after four years, we discover that they don't speak to each other, they lost contact and we have to discover why.

The chemistry between them is notable and quite predictable, but I'm not going to deny that they are annoying, the back and forth was tiring. Also, something that I didn't like about the plot was how the authors deal with the subject of infidelity, I feel that they justify it and that's not ok.

However, I'm not going to doubt that it was entertaining. I knew what had happened between them since the beginning of the book, but reading and confirming it was still gratifying.

This novel was genuinely so good!

One of the first rom com books I’ve gotten into in AWHILE. Had all my fav tropes, and substance (good mix of fiction and romance) Though for the majority of the book during the flashbacks and present day they are both in their own perspective marriages/engagements. Now I won't say this was a cheating trope but I don’t think this book is for everyone bc of that factor so read with caution. Personally I thought it showed how realistic love and relationships are. I devoured this novel and found myself smiling throughout almost the whole thing!
Fans of beach reads and people we meet on vacation should highly consider reading this!

There are so many books within this book. Katrina and Nathan are bestselling authors, famous for writing a book together. But that book also ended their partnership. They haven't spoken in four years, and their agents want them to write together again.

We get to learn the plots of their books and their writing process, as the timeline shifts from present day to four years ago with dual perspectives. That sounds like it could be confusing, but I never found it so. Instead, this drew me in so quickly. I loved both Katrina and Nathan's voices, and I could not put it down. The writing is simply superb, and given the topic, that's something I paid even more attention to than usual. I highlighted so many quotes to return to about books and love and their overlap.

I highly recommend this book, especially if you like books about books. I felt I learned so much about writing and word choice. It was like reading a master class on novels.

Thank you to Berkley and NetGalley for the advanced reader copy. These opinions are my own.

TW: depression and anxiety

4.5 stars; I've been feeling slumpy all week but I finally picked this one up and couldn't put it down and read it in less than 24 hours. simply put, this book was just beautiful. it was romantic and angsty and rich.

I loved that it was a little meta; of the books about writers that I've read, this is definitely one of the best of utilizing the process for the plot. both Nathan and Kat's perspectives were great to read from but still distinguished enough that it wasn't confusing. I especially loved watching Kat process and work through her own anxiety not only about Nathan but her career and expectations as well. the build up of their falling out didn't fall flat the way so many of these types of storylines do. I love stories about Great Love and the intoxicating nature of Kat and Nathan's dynamic definitely falls into that category.

I will definitely picking up a copy for my collection at some point; I can't recommend it enough.

This... was not what I was expecting from this one.

This reminded me a lot of Beach Read by Emily Henry, but it was also worlds different from that book.

The Roughest Draft is about two people who are meant to be together, but that never got the timing right. It's bleak at first because the characters are miserable. They are forced into a situation they tried to avoid for years, but that, in the end, ended up being the best thing that could happen to them.

I know this won't be for everyone. At first, I thought I would be let down by this book, because it took me a while to get into it. I wasn't sure where we were headed, but in the end, Emily Wibberley and Austin Siegemund-Broka won me over with their prose. The writing here was incredible; it delved into our characters' emotions, but without giving away too much.

I'll be honest, I feel like the "writing process" part of this book took up a lot of the plot. I could have done with a little less. Both of our protagonists throw themselves into their work instead of communicating their issues with one another, which drove me crazy. But as they are both writers, I guess I should have expected it.

This really caught me off-guard, because it was so different from what I was expecting from this author duo. But I did really like what they did with this book.

I’ve always wondered how two people write a book together. The Roughest Draft, written by a married couple no less, showcases the creative process of two people developing a story together. Katrina and Nathan meet at a writers workshop, become best friends, and write two best selling novels together before parting ways, reasons unknown to the public and those closest to them.

Four years laters, Katrina is pressured by her agent, also her fiancé, and Nathan by his agent and publisher, to team up and write the second book in their contract. They haven’t spoken since the release of their last book. Will this be a disaster in the making, or will they return to the magic of their pairing and churn out another best seller?

I gave this book 3 stars to indicate that I liked it, but I didn’t love it. I enjoyed the suspense of not knowing what happened between the two main characters and only being given little clues here and there. At the same time, it became super dragged out and every interaction between the two resulted in a page or two of reflection. I like books with a fast moving pace, and this one was just a bit too slow for me. The romance didn’t feel genuine either, it felt forced, which was disappointing. The anticipation of will they or won’t they fell a little flat.

Regardless, a cute romance for sure, perfect for book clubs and unwinding after a long day!

Thank you Berkley Publishing and NetGalley for the e-ARC in exchange for my honest review.

This book is a mix between Beach Read and People We Meet On Vacation, neither of which did it for me as romances. Even more so than Beach Read, People We Meet on Vacation is a clear comp. Emotional cheating is another. If you liked PWMOV, I could see you liking this one as a lot of people liked that book.

- This book is about two writers who never actually dated in the past. The were “best friends” but even friends have chemistry. I felt no chemistry here.

- This book is about two people who were in other relationships for most of the book. Nathan was married during every flashback (sans the one he was merely engaged). Katrina was engaged during most of the present scenes. More notes on emotional cheating below.

- These two authors do not write romance. The book they are writing in the present is about divorce, while somehow mirroring their… relationship? The couple gets divorced at the end but it’s… so romantic?

- Katrina only agreed to write the book in the present because her fiancé coerced her because he needed the book profits.

- This fiancé was also Nathan and Kat’s agent (he’s still her present day agent) so as along as they write the book, even if Kat breaks up with him, he still wins and gets money (I hate this more than almost anything).

- Personally, this book was a love story not a romance. Emotional cheating, amongst other things, ruined this book for me.

- Kat and Nathan are divorce and infidelity (this is self-proclaimed by them) writers, experiencing divorce and infidelity in this book.

Like PWMOV, this book is structured with present day and flashback chapters. Flashbacks range from four to six years prior. Like PWMOV, this is a book where the characters are in separate relationships, not with each other. Like PWMOV, there was a *huge* fight in the past that the flashbacks are leading to and the present chapters keep mystically shrouding with vague comments.

Like PWMOV, the *huge* fight was not so huge at all. In fact, all it was was a weird overreaction, miscommunication, and nothing more. You get to the point where you’re like… the fight wasn’t just… *that* was it? No, it can’t be… please don’t let it be. And then you get to the point when you realize the fight was indeed just *that.*

The only good ending would have been Kat and Nathan not publishing this book. Chris deserved none of their success. I’d love if they were secretly writing a different manuscript in an unreliable narrator way so we didn’t know and scratched the other fucked up one and made Chris zero money. They could have gone to a different publisher. That would have been interesting.

Right off the bat, I had zero interest in a book where both characters were in separate relationships for the whole time. It was too close to infidelity, even in the flashbacks. Maybe I could have handled one character, but both just really wears me out. I would have liked her if she dumped the fiancé and wrote the book for herself from the beginning. That way they would have both been single in the present.

There are numerous scenes where Kat recognizes that he’s writing his love for her into their second book (the bestseller and book they write in the flashbacks) going so far as to describe her and what she’s wearing via the manuscript. There’s a flashback scene where they almost kiss but stop, but then he writes a mirroring scene for the book where the man doesn’t stop. Nathan then writes Kat a note saying this is what he wanted to happen in real life. Still properly married. Still much too long before he asked his wife for a divorce.

The authors hoped we can just ignore 63% of emotional cheating, actual cheating at 64% (I don’t care that Chris gave permission what the fuck. She should have broken up with him at 10%), her and Chris’s breakup at 71% and more kissing between Kat and Nathan at 75%. At 77% we get the flashback of Nathan finally deciding to get a divorce in the past, about 100% too late for decency. Maybe if I loved this book more I’d be able to talk about it 50% less. (At 80% they kiss again and she was like wow I get to do this now and I’m like??? Girl you apparently got to do it before 💀 *checks notes* at 64%.) Not even them writing a sex scene was hot. It actually made me uncomfortable.

⭐️/5 🌶🌶/5

Thank you to the publisher for an advanced copy of this book. Despite my review, I was excited for this one. I recommend If I’m Being Honest by these authors, as that’s one of my favorite YA books!

I'm a huge fan of Emily Henry's Beach Read and People We Meet on Vacation and I felt this book combined the two. The premise was intriguing and promising, but I felt the delivery fell flat.

DNF'd at 15%.

I really tried to like this book because forced proximity is a lot of fun for me, but unfortunately I had to DNF it. Neither character was likable and I couldn't root for them.

Two super duper famous co-authors split up for unknown reasons shortly before the release of their biggest hit. She goes into hiding, and he goes on to continue his writing career, but both are stagnant in their lives. And both have one left novel to write on their contract. It’s been three years, but it’s time for them to write together. Somehow.

Yeah, this was a big fat DNF for me.

At 8%.

Normally, I would not post this to my blog (or, quite frankly, the review on the other book), because I’m trying this new thing where I only post negative review on GR (something something limiting negatively, whatever), but this is a themed post, this was one of the books, and since every single book here was different than anticipated (for different reasons, as you can see), I decided to do the good, the bad, and the ugly.

The writing styles (for both characters but in different ways) and me are just NOT jivving, and as an indie author, the whole oh poor little me I’m stacked with privilege and absolutely and utterly famous oh what do I do next? thing is irksome and I was too irked to push past it.

Maybe it gets better. This puppy currently has a 4.01 rating and the authors are very popular. Maybe you read it and loved it. That’s great. But this was not for me and I wasn’t going to push through my initial irritation to see if it gets better.

And now I’m going to live my life, happy and carefree and whatnot.

Just excuse my tears, because Berkeley will never approve me for another ARC ever again.

3.5⭐
Thank you so much to Berkley and Netgalley for providing an e-arc! All thoughts and opinions are still my own.

This was such a great romance! The writing and prose in here blew me away and I loved watching these characters find their way to each other. This romance deals heavily with emotional cheating, divorce, and mental health. So tread carefully before diving into this one!

I had certain expectations about this romance before going in and it definitely threw me for a loop when I first started. But I was pulled into the writing and plot immediately. I'm so glad this writing duo decided to write an adult romance, because their writing is STUNNING. I loved their prose and style choices, and the meta way the past chapters paralleled the present day, paralleling the romance novel they were writing.

I also really loved the characters and thought they had fantastic chemistry. I love a good forced proximity trope and it definitely added a layer of tension that I ate up. There were a couple of scenes in here where they're writing that were so charged I was left fanning myself. Despite them barely even looking at each other. Which is insanely impressive!

But I thought the romance lost a little steam by the end. This book starts out with so many large external roadblocks keeping them from each other. And by the time they work through those and get to the penultimate conflict, I felt like it was slightly underwhelming. And it felt like the pace and chemistry waned a little.

But I still really enjoyed this overall, and I desperately hope this duo writes more adult romance! I loved so much about this and want to read more from them in the genre!

Will be published on Forever Young Adult on 1/24/22.

First Impressions: Want Everything She Has

Berkley Books is the same publishing house for Emily Henry, who has had fantastic success with her romance hits of the last two years, so it’s no surprise that they are hoping to catch lightning in a bottle again by evoking very similar aspects with this cover. It’s bright, it’s beachy, it’s bold. It’s an amalgamation of the little people reading separately from Beach Read and the palm fronds from People We Meet on Vacation.

What’s Your Type?

Friends to enemies to lovers
Living your passion
Emotional cheating
Forced proximity
Second-chance at happiness
Beachy settings

Dating Profile

The first half of our writing duo, Katrina Freeling, is brilliant and a bit neurotic. Her anxiety is getting the best of her, and I think we can all understand that life can be so overwhelming that sometimes the hardest decision you want to make in a day is simply “what Netflix show should I put on?” When we meet Katrina, she’s spent the last four years NOT writing, even though it’s her passion, because she’s let her fears (and her agent-turned-fiancé, Chris) control her life.

Nathan Van Huysen, on the other hand, cannot breathe if he cannot write SOMETHING every day, even the day his father died or when he signed his divorce papers two years ago. Writing and success can be easy, he believes, and he’s never more confident than with a pen in hand. He’s tried going solo sans Katrina over the last four years, but his publisher declines his second solo book option because his latest just doesn’t sparkle the way his books written with Katrina do.

Meet Cute

Katrina and Nathan met at a writer’s retreat six years ago and instantly realized that together they had something special. No—not that way; they never had a relationship or an affair, despite what some tawdry gossip columnists would insinuate, but their writing together created magic. (Nathan was engaged when they met and married during their writing partnership.) Together they inspired and pushed each other to new heights, and fans of the books made them smashing bestsellers.

But something happened between them at the end of their writing retreat four years ago and they’ve refused to speak since. Except Nathan won’t get published alone anymore. And Katrina’s fiancé has spent more money than he should, and is desperate for the payout if they fulfill the final book from their publishing contract. So despite their misgivings about being in each other’s company, Nathan and Katrina hole up in a beachy bungalow in Florida and are about to spend two solid months trapped together dredging up old memories.

The Lean: Soulmates

From While You Were Sleeping, Bill Pullman explains attraction to Sandra Bullock
We get flashbacks to four years ago as the writing slowly unfolds exactly what went “wrong” between Katrina and Nathan. Nathan was married at the time, so they never crossed that line physically, but it’s clear in the camaraderie they share and the intimacy of the notes scrawled across the bottom of their shared pages of writing that something is brewing.

Contrasted to the present, when they, at first, can barely stand to look at each other or be in the same room. As they form an uneasy truce so they can actually do what they went there to do, you see fits and starts of the understanding they used to share.

If you’re about lingering looks and people who refuse to say what they’re feeling because they have a whole host of anxieties but are clearly so perfect for each other it’s painful, then you’ll probably really enjoy this. It’s going to completely frustrate others who are looking for something more straightforward, less emotionally fraught, and with a lot more heat.

Dirty Talk

There are some amusing moments when Katrina and Nathan are feeling alternately awkward and turned on as they have to co-write sex scenes and their banter during their own is cute-sexy, but all of the sex in this book is very PG-13. I am curious to know how awkward this IRL writing couple felt as they did this book, and if that’s why we got a mostly implied but not explicit scene, or if they just don’t want to do raunchy, but either way, here’s a taste:

While I touch him , his mouth moves to my neck, causing me to arch my back into the contact. His fingers slide to my stomach, then sink lower, stroking me over the fabric of my shorts. I close my eyes. Knowing it’s Nathan’s fingers slowing undoing me, Nathan’s lips meeting mine, feels like fiction— the kind you read with a hand between your legs, not the kind you get to taste on your tongue.

Ms. Perky’s Prize for Purplest Prose

Nathan’s chapters, especially, are a bevy of writing metaphors. He’s a snarky, passionate person and writing is how he expresses his feelings he won’t put into physical speech, so his internal thoughts are often either very purple or couched in literary terms. Just take this confession he writes in the voice of a character:

Writing alongside you is my greatest joy. Is it greedy to want more? You’ve changed every hope and dream I’ve ever chased—revised them to something smaller and yet more infinite. I want to write our lives together, K. To make each of my days a page written in your hand. To craft the chapters of my future with you in every word. Because I’ve realized a life lived with you is the best story I could ever tell.

It’s so nerdy it’s cute. I confess I spent a lot of time wondering how similar and dissimilar the real writers are to their fictional counterparts. Katrina’s thoughts were more rigid and controlling in regards to her life and writing, because she was so repressed it hurt. She is known to be the more concise and direct writer of the two, and it did show in her thoughts, which was a cool stylistic choice.

We Need To Talk: A Serious Turn

I am so curious to see what the general response is to this book, because I think it’s going to be very “love it or hate it”. Wibberley and Siegemund-Broka’s YA style is very snappy, witty, thoughtful-but-relatable, and this HAD all those things, but it was more introspective and serious, as, obvs, the subject matter was a bit more grown-up and personal. The first part was harder to get through than the rest of the novel, when Katrina and Nathan were just so resentful of each other and you’re sitting there thinking, like, why even bother, please go find your joy elsewhere.

Some may be turned off by the cheating aspects no matter how nuanced or layered they are, and I get it. I don’t prefer stories with cheating myself, but I think they did a good job addressing it, and I do give some more leeway, personally, to the kind of emotional cheating that was going on in this story. It did cause both of them a lot of angst because they weren’t intentionally going into their writing partnership with this in mind, and they did rectify both of their situations as they arose relatively quickly. I do believe you can find that person who “gets you” at any point in your life and it does happen to suck when you’re already married to a perfectly lovely person. In the present, with Katrina’s fiancé, he’s pretty villainous from the start, so not that it’s “okay” to emotionally cheat on him, but it’s clear these two are completely wrong for each other.

To turn the topic in a completely different direction, I have some notes on this line from Nathan:

On the front porch, the sunlight warms my skin wonderfully. It’s sweaty in Key Largo, but not in the ways I mind. Not the sweat of walking in the city in your heaviest coat, or of elevators in summer. Florida’s is like after-sex sweat.

Whichever of the duo wrote this line—are you one of those people who is always cold and thus “enjoys” the heat? Because I can GUARANTEE YOU: I have never felt the Florida humidity in the middle of July and had ANY remotely sexy thoughts. I cringe when my husband tries to lovingly touch my back when we’re walking outside because it causes my shirt to stick to me and UGH, NO.

Was It Good For You? Let’s Workshop That
I’ll be honest and say this was not my favorite book from this duo, and it’s in large part to the insular, sometimes suffocating feelings between Katrina and Nathan. I think the authors did what they set out to do well because, geez, sometimes I wanted to shake the characters by the shoulders and tell them to lighten the hell up. Stop standing in your own way! And I’m sure that was precisely their intention. But as far the book making my heart pound, it was more from the anxiety it was giving me before the happy ending than the fun anticipation of the happy outcome.

I think it’s worth picking up if you like a “hard-won” romance, love a good montage of the act of writing, and don’t go into it thinking it’s a perfectly light beach read.

FTC Full Disclosure: I received my free review copy from Berkley Books. I received neither money nor peanut butter cups in exchange for this review. The Roughest Draft is available tomorrow.

This book was really well done, but I am not sure I loved it. I wanted more romance and chemistry. I'm not sure the extremely subtle nuances and chemistry worked for me. The writing was a 4-5 for me, and the plot/characters/chemistry were more like a 3-3.5.