I reviewed The Roughest Draft for BookPage. Here's an excerpt:

Co-authors and former friends become lovers when forced to return to the beautiful Key Largo, Florida, beach house where they first struck literary gold in young adult fiction duo Emily Wibberley and Austin Siegemund-Broka’s debut book for adults, The Roughest Draft.

From the moment they met, aspiring novelists Nathan Van Huysen and Katrina Freeling had brilliant, intense chemistry.
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Three years later, Katrina and Nathan aren’t speaking. She got engaged to their once-shared agent and he has married his fiancée. Nothing has gone quite as well for either of them since the break. Nathan’s solo book was dead on arrival, and no one wants another. Katrina is even more stuck: She’s not writing or even venturing into bookstores in person for fear of being recognized or connected to her formerly lustrous career.

In the midst of this limbo, they get a call. Their publisher wants them to fulfill their two-book contract, and time is running out. The solution: Recapture the magic by returning to Key Largo.
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Katrina and Nathan are easy to care about, both as individuals and as a potential couple. But some structural and stylistic aspects prevent The Roughest Draft from reaching its full potential. The flashbacks are well done, but the slow-drip reveal of what caused past hurts and hostilities keeps the reader from understanding the couple’s present-day motivations. And the often self-conscious and metaphor-stuffed prose, plus abundant reflections on the nature of reality versus fiction, creates distance where there should be intimacy. However, this romance is a joy to read once Nathan and Katrina let go of the past, at least temporarily. As they give their natural connection free rein, The Roughest Draft truly sparkles.

the writing of this didn't really work for me, but the romance did! it's a writing pet peeve of mine when people's significant others are villainous in romances, but the connection between the two protagonists and the writing element were fun.

I really liked the concept behind the plot in The Roughest Draft. I don’t normally go for second chance romance, but I was really intrigued by the synopsis for this book. I was also all there for the forced proximity trope!

When I started reading, one of the first things I noted was that a lot of the time, The Roughest Draft read more like adult fiction than contemporary romance. I definitely expected more cliche language and situations. But this was not a bad thing! The book was very well written, and the plot was well thought out and executed.

I appreciated how well structured The Roughest Draft was too. The reading also made it very easy for me to imagine the situations the characters would get into as well as the setting.

I’d never been to Florida when reading The Roughest Draft, but I definitely felt as if I was there with the characters. Now, having been to Florida since, I’m happy to say that the vibe was accurate! Overall, I had a very good experience reading The Roughest Draft, and recommend it to those who enjoy forced proximity, second chance romance, as well as a moderate amount of pining!

Received a digital ARC of this book via NetGalley.

Cute story! I love books about people in the literary world and chicklit. This has the best of both. Not going to lie would definitely want to read their books in real life. This was such a good light read!

I really enjoyed this title! I love books written by 2 authors who take turns writing chapters, and the characters were original and authentic. Great plot with going back in time and then the present also. I would definitely recommend!

I had really high hopes for this book. The premise is great! But it just fell flat. Being marketed as a romance, it didn't check all the boxes. It jumped between present and past choppily.

Katrina and Nathan's chemistry was good, but not great. Chris (Katrina's fiancé) was absolutely terrible. I felt like Katrina knew that but continues to stays with him for most of the book. And then semi-cheats on him with Nathan. With flashbacks, you learn she only was with Chris to get back at Nathan, but after she finds out how Nathan feels she continues to stay... It was just too much. Overall, it felt choppy and overly receptive.

I finally got around to reading this! It was too feelings-y for me. It thought very highly of itself I think; and I prefer my romances on the funnier / less highbrow end of the spectrum.

I love when writers write about writers and readers, and how they can nail exactly what it is that we all love about books. Make it a contemporary romance and I’m going to love it ten times more. This has a more literary fiction feel than I was expecting, but that was also very refreshing.

The Roughest Draft provoked strong feelings in me as I struggled to figure out what had gone wrong between Katrina and Nathan. They were supposed to be writing another book together, so Katrina's fiancée pushes her to write with Nathan and Nathan agrees to his publishers demands.

I thought this was going to be more of a romantic comedy, but it was a deep novel filled with introspection and dialogue that had me struggling to figure out what was going on. The strong feelings between Nathan and Katrina are tormented by one or the other of them being in a relationship with someone else since they met. This story is more about the writing process behind two people who take the journey to forgiveness and healing to see what is on the other side.

Thank you to Berkley Publishing, NetGalley, and authors Emily Wibberly and Austin Siegemund-Broka for this review copy for me to read and enjoy.

#berkleywritesstrongwomen #berkleypublishing #netgalley #bookstagram #newrelease #arc #books #slowburnromance

Oh, how my heart loved this! The Roughest Draft is easily going to be one of my favorite reads of 2022, I am already calling in. The set up and premise of this book was interesting but I was a little worried about how well it would go on paper. Well, the authors pulled it off without a hitch and I was immediately obsessed with this story. Even though it came out in winter, this is going to be an excellent beach read for the summer months!

I loved the parallels between past and present, as well as the story within a story that plays out. The chemistry is fantastic, and the characters felt real. All of the talk about the craft of drafting, and life of a writer was relatable and I felt at times as if the authors had plucked these things right out of my own brain. There is angst and tension galore, and you can bet it all pays off. Highly highly recommend!

Ummmm, why is this book so popular?

**Small spoiler alerts**
- emotional cheating throughout the whole story. Is this a thing now? Are we embracing this as a society now? Because I'm not here for that! No thank you!
- horrible fiance/boss who might has well of come right out and said go ahead and sleep with him if it makes you work better and I get a big, best seller.
- two characters that are supposed to have chemistry but I couldn't find anything in any of these pages that looked like chemistry to me.
- seriously, are we all reading the same book?

I didn't like anything about this one and I'm sure I will be sacrificed on the Romance Fire Pit for this review but it's just a big, fat NO from me.

This book was deliciously messy!

Following the fallout of two co-writers as they are forced to finish their final contracted book. Messy emotions, harsh words and unhinged emotions fill the book they strive to write and air out all their feelings outside of fiction.
I want to thank this book for its captivating writing because these authors did a great job; the style pulled me in. AND thank god there was no cheating, just human emotion, and life is complicated.

It wasn't a perfect five stars because of the conflict.
The reason they didn't get together had me throwing the book across the room -in my mind anyway because my phone is expensive and I can do it... but I was close.

But still, a delightful book that I highly recommend!

Thank you to NetGalley and the publishers for giving me an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.

I have always heard good things about this author duo’s young adult books, so I was interested when I heard they had an adult romance coming out. Plus, it was a book about books and authors, and I am always drawn to that.

I think I had a misunderstanding of what this was going to be. I expected this to be more of a romcom, partially because of the style of the cover, but this was much more serious and felt slightly like a literary fiction version of a romance. Beyond that, this book just didn’t work for me. I didn’t care about any of the characters. They all felt really bland. I didn’t feel like Nathan and Katrina had any personality beyond being writers, and Nathan just came off as pretentious. Katrina’s fiancée Chris was basically just there to be a jerk and cause problems. I think there was supposed to be angst because Katrina and Nathan were both with other people at different times in their lives, but there was nothing to make me care about them staying with their current partners beyond me not approving of emotional infidelity. On the other hand, I didn’t know why they were so into each other. I didn’t feel any chemistry, and their fighting was just annoying to me because I didn’t care about their relationship.

This book was just not for me. I don’t think it’s necessarily a bad book, and others out there might like it. But as someone who has read a lot of romance, this didn’t work for me. However, I would be interested to try something else from them in the future.

I loved this book. It was the right balance of back and forth from present to past. I enjoyed the slow build and the writing was beautiful. I don't always love a book that holds back "what happened" for the entire book especially when the characters are always around each other because I feel like "really, they wouldn't talk about it" but this book handle that situation wonder. This is definitely a book I will be recommending to anyone looking for a slow burn romance.

Thank you NetGalley for providing me with an electronic copy of The Roughest Draft.

This story did not tug at my heart strings the way it would. I was honestly a little frustrated by the pace of the story and the interactions between Nathan and Katrina.

Not a terrible novel by any means but not my favorite either. That said, I would totally give these authors another chance.

I struggled to get into the characters and their relationship because the concept of the story itself was just endlessly fascinating - two authors married in real life writing a story about writing partners who are messily, complicatedly, incapable about talking about it anywhere but on the page in love with each other. The real romance in this is for craft, for writing and revision and how authors take their own stuff to the story, but I still spent spent a lot of brain space reading so much into each of their deftly crafted sentences.

A cute romance with a bit of a large slow burn. I overall enjoyed the idea of this one but it almost felt as if there was just a bit too much filler.

This wasn't what I expected. More women's fiction than romance, and I had no idea the main characters were involved with others . Not really my cup of tea so I'm going to bow out of rating this one. But thank you Netgalley for the opportunity to read!

I knew nothing about these co-authors going into the book, including the fact that they're married, nor had I read any of their young adult novels. I had no expectations, which I think worked in my favor, and learning of their relationship after finishing The Roughest Draft explained why the story felt so incredibly personal. It's about co-authors, Katrina Freeling and Nathan Van Huysen, whose books were bestsellers, until they dissolved their working relationship and friendship three years ago. They're still in contract for one more book and now they're forced to reunite in Florida, where they wrote their last novel, to get out this final manuscript. But as they write, they each have to face their past and what's happening now that they're together again. It's very character-drive and introspective. They're trapped in a house, forced to write, and the claustrophobia they feel sometimes spilled out onto the page and rightfully so. There's so much simmering beneath the surface and given this is a romance, it won't surprise you to hear that the romantic tension is a real, palpable thing. I loved how it showed the intimacy that comes with co-writing and the wonderful back and forth of being perfectly in sync with someone. And I enjoyed that the ultimate conflict wasn't something contrived but honest, messy, and real. Sometimes you're your own worst enemy, romantically, personally, or just in life in general. But more than anything, I got that epic love feeling from Katrina and Nathan's relationship and that's my favorite kind of romance.

DNF'd at 54%. I gave this book my all, but something about it just didn't do it for me. I'm not so sure whether it was the pacing, or the interchanging timelines, or the voices of the main characters, or.. I don't know.. I tried my very best to finish reading this, but I honestly felt like it was lacking in so many ways. It wasn't engaging, it wasn't relatable, both the main characters weren't easy to root for, and perhaps the most disappointing part for me is that it had so much potential. Maybe I gave up on this book too early? Maybe I just wasn't in the right mood for it at the time? I honestly don't know. I'll probably pick this book up a few months from now, though, to try again. For now, I'm sorry, but it's a no from me.