First thank you to st martins press and NetGalley for an advanced readers copy in exchange for an honest review.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Synopsis: Emma is a talented writer but her life took a twist after high school. Now she has the chance to work with her favorite writer but it means getting out of her comfort zone.

What I liked: i love watching rom-coms and this book is a love letter to that genre. Emma is a great character in that she has so much potential but letting go and taking advantage of it is not her nature. Charlie is an amazing writer but he protects himself by isolating himself. Emma’s dad had an accident and suffered a traumatic brain injury. My mom had a craniotomy which is also a brain injury. Too often only the bad side is discussed in books but Katherine center always shows us the bright side. He is very sweet and patient and teaches his girls lessons. I really like Charlie the best in the book. He is brilliant but emotionally life has been the greatest to him. He builds up walls to protect himself Of course with a title the Rom-commers there has to be romance. I love that their love came from the small moments and grew during their time together from friends to more. It wasn’t all grand gestures. You can always count on lessons from a Katherine. Center book. Please do read this book as we need more kindness and love in the world. Of course laughter always helps too

Rating: 4.5/5

Katherine Center is an instant buy for me! And this book proved why!

I laughed and cried at parts of this and found the overall romance was so wonderful. The characters and their individual development was excellent. And I loved seeing their romance blossom.

Overall, I will definitely be recommending this and look forward to reading more from Center!

A book about writing a script about writing a script about love? YES PLEASE. Even if that confused you just know, Katherine Center did it again and wrote one of the best books I’ve read this year. Funny, witty, inspiring, and uplifting, the Rom-Commers is this year’s summer romance must read!
Thank you NetGalley and St Martin’s Press for the advanced copy.

katherine center can DO NO WRONG!!! 🥳 I love everything she writes between her fluffy banter to her sweet grand gesture moments!!

the biggest red flag (and elephant?) in the room for me was the attitude of the main characters… both charlie and emma were … not nice? I love a good enemies to lovers don’t get me wrong, but there’s a difference between banter and straight up slaughter of character 😅😕 if someone said the things to me that charlie said to emma or emma said to her sister, I would simply not stick around for the explanation…

that being said, I did enjoy the exploration of grief and trauma through the stage of grief that is anger. as someone who has experienced all five stages, anger is definitely the one where people alienate themselves from you, and I can definitely appreciate how charlie and emma both took that in a different direction

this was a surface light book and dare I say, I wanted more! I wanted more about emma’s caretaker moments with her father, more with charlie’s ex-wife and their guinea pig babies, more with emma and sylvie’s strained sisterhood due to their childhood trauma… but I am also a 100% contemporary emo romance girlie so that just might be a personal preference

TLDR: I liked it a lot, but it didn’t hit as hard as katherine center’s other books tend to do…

thank you to netgalley and st martins press for the advanced copy in exchange for an honest review!

rating: 4 stars
wine pairing: brut champagne

This sweet book felt like Katherine Center’s love letter to all rom-coms 🥰

GENRE: Rom-Com
MY RATING: 🌟🌟🌟🌟 (4/5)
#gifted @macmillan.audio —tysm!

READ IF YOU LIKE:
▫️ Rom-com movies 🎥
▫️Single POV
▫️ Laugh-out-loud moments
▫️Closed door (no spice)
▫️ Father-daughter relationships
▫️Overcoming family wounds ❤️‍🩹
▫️Tropes: forced proximity, enemies-to-lovers, workplace romance, grand gesture

MY THOUGHTS & RATING:
This book was absolutely delightful! 🥹 If you’re already a KC fan, you’ll be so happy with The Rom-Commers! 💖 It was my 3rd one by her and I’m learning that her books are a fun balance of romance & women’s fiction. This one left me feelin’ GIDDY ☺️

When Emma is given the opportunity to be a ghostwriter for the one and only famous screenwriter, Charlie Yates, she can’t pass it up! Although leaving her father for several weeks is difficult since she is his primary caretaker. Once she arrived to do the job, things are not as they were promised 😳🤭

I really enjoyed the themes in this story about being brave and going for it!!! Life is not going to be easy and neither will loving someone fully. The banter was the freakin’ cutest #swoon 🥰 I also enjoyed the heavier side-plot (hellooo, emotional reads are my fav), but do keep in mind cancer is mentioned in this book. The main plot was kinda silly tbh lol, but it was adorable nevertheless. Pick this up for a quick, enjoyable read!

DETAILS:
▫️Publishes: 6/11/24
▫️Pages: 336

Thank you to Katherine Center, St. Martin’s, and NetGalley for an ARC of The Rom-Commers! All opinions are my own.

Whew lord - great ready to CRYYYYYY!! This book was so amazingly witty and funny and snarky until all of a sudden I found myself sobbing hysterically and genuinely worried about how things were going to end. I got my HEA, thankfully, but whew, Katherine put me through it for a second.

This was such an amazing book, and as my second KC book (following reading Hello Stranger last year), it has absolutely convinced me that I need to inhale Katherine’s entire back catalog. Sorry to all my friends who I recommend this to - you’re going to cry, but it’s going to be worth it in the end.

*Potential spoilers below*

POV: single first person

You can expect: screenwriter MCs, caretaking, forced proximity, roomance, coworkers to lovers, guinea pig dad.

Rep: TBI, Ménière’s disease, soft tissue sarcoma, anxiety/health anxiety, gay side character

Spice: closed door, never goes beyond kissing

CW: traumatic accident (side character), death of a parent, cancer, near-drowning accident as a child

The Rom-Commers is coming from Katherine Center, an author who has captured the hearts of many with her writing style and ability to write romance that leaves you giggling and swooning all in one breath.

While I absolutely love her writing style, I did find this book a little difficult to connect with when it came to Emma and Charlie. The plot itself has all of the makings for a great rom com, and it did indeed achieve its job. However, I think it would have hit home a little more for me if Charlie's character had been more developed. He came off as rude, maybe even standoffish, and it was hard to see where Emma started to fall for him. It didn't seem he developed enough for Emma to see him in the light she did, but also, I can admit maybe that was just my expectation.

Despite this hiccup, it was still a lovely read. The writing is lovely and this author seems to always have a way with words that has you swooning even if you don't want to.

Katherine Center is absolutely an autoread author for me, and I adored her newest book The Rom-Commers. I’m so, so grateful to @stmartinspress for an advanced copy and to @macmillanaudio for an ALC. The Rom-Commers comes out June 11, so there’s time to preorder. I can’t wait to pick up my copy at my first in-person @katherinecenter event (insert many squeals!).

The Rom-Commers stars writer Emma Wheeler who has put her dreams of being a screenwriter on hold to care for her father who needs round-the-clock care in Texas. When her manager calls with an offer she can’t refuse—help screenwriting legend Charlie Yates rewrite his terrible romcom in California—she almost refuses until her younger sister cancels an internship to stay with their dad. But when Emma gets to California, Charlie Yates is not the delight she’d hoped, and he has no interest in writing with a “failed nobody screenwriter.” Can Emma change his mind? I don’t think I’m breaking any of Katherine Center’s rules if I say probably, but you should read to find out.

I loved this book. It was joyful and funny and sad and had me on the edge of my seat with nerves more times than I typically like. But when it’s a Katherine Center book, I trust her not to break my heart in any way she can’t fix. I wish I knew more how to bring this level of positivity in my life despite things not going my way, but I’m not always great at it. Reading her books, however, is one tactic I’ve got.

A couple reviews of this one I’ve seen thought Charlie was too mean. And, okay, I guess he was a little acerbic—maybe even mean—at times, but that made it all the better when we saw his sweetness come out in little ways. If you’re looking for a perfect love interest from the get go, maybe Charlie isn’t your next book boyfriend, but he’s absolutely one of mine.

Katherine Center has a wonderful way of crafting a rom-com that has just enough whimsy to not be plausible but just enough reality that you can think “what if it was”. I found her latest installation to be almost as enjoyable as her previous novels but felt the MMC felt a little flat. He lacked many of the endearing qualities of Center’s other MMCs but by the end I still found myself rooting for him and the couple’s happy ending. I would still recommend this as a lovely, quick summer read.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read an ARC in exchange for my honest opinion.

Thank you NetGalley for the advance reader copy of The Rom-Commers by Katherine Center.

I’ve read Katherine Center before and enjoyed her writing, but not like this. I really connected with this one. The characters were sweet and funny and relatable. Their motivations made sense. There’s no contrived tension that reads like a Three’s Company plot.

This book is funny and touching and clever. I’m rounding up from 4 1/2 stars.

This was only my second book by Katherine Center, but she is officially an auto-read author for me! This book was wonderful and gave me ALL THE FEELS! It is absolutely adorable and perfect in every way! I like that the characters in her books are not perfect, they have flaws and have been through things. I love the banter and the chemistry! I think of her books as "comfort reads", like comfort food, but in book form!

Thank you to Netgalley and St. Martins Press for the opportunity to read this fantastic story that comes out on June 11!

I discovered Katherine Center's books a few months ago and I've really enjoyed many of her books since then. This book was no exception.

Charlie is a very successful screenwriter, but he has many quirks. And he's been commissioned to write a rom-com. But he's done a miserable job with it. Maybe because he doesn't believe in love. And he certainly doesn't believe in happy endings. Emma, an aspiring screen writer, has been hired by Charlie's agent to help him re-write the screen play. Even thought she's had a rough 10 years, she still believes in love, in romance, and happily ever after. And she's willing to pull Charlie along to understand what makes a great rom-com.

Anyone who has ever read a rom-com knows how it's going to end. But Katherine Center does such a good job at bringing us there. Chuckles, outright laughter, tears, and a great storyline. There are some very heavy moments in this book, but there is fun and sexual tension. I'd absolutely recommend this book.

This was just ok for me -- It was so heavy handed in the romance cliches that it felt inauthentic to me. It's like one person said what if I do absolutely everything that romance lovers want but in one book and this was the result. It ended up just not giving me the feels that I anted. I will say however, that if you love Emily Henry, this one is for you! Also this cover is a bit of an abomination!

The Rom-Commers comes out next week on June 11, 2024 and you can purchase HERE.

But that's not to say I'd never been in love. I was not stingy with my crushes. I had a thing for the guy at the meat counter at the grocery store, and the ER doc who'd stitched my dad up after his last fall, and a cute young maintenance guy who worked at our building.
I fell in love all the time. Just. nobody fell in love with me back.
Fiction really kind of was all I had in the romance department.
But that wasn't a weakness. That was a strength.
I had a theory that we gravitate toward the stories we need in life. Whatever we're longing for-adventure, excitement, emotion, connection-we turn to stories that help us find it. Whatever questions we're struggling with-sometimes ones so deep, we don't even really know we're asking them-we look for answers in stories.
Love stories had lifted me up, delighted me, and educated me on the power of human kindness for years.

The Rom-Commers -This was an easy 5 star book and one of my favorites by Katherine Center.

The unique storyline of Emma getting hired to help Charlie write his rom-com screenplay was fun and created a fun and humorous storyline. Add in Charlies medical issues, that showed his sensitive & human side instead
of just being someone famous.
I just loved Emma & Charlie and even their long road to be together and their many tropes through the book. I laughed, cried, and wanted to smack both main characters during their stuborn times.

Highly recommend!
Thanks to the publisher & author for my arc.

This story is about Emma, an aspiring screenwriter, who gets the opportunity to collaborate with one of her favorite screenwriters, Charlie, on his first rom-com script…which is terrible. Charlie is grumpy and immediately refuses Emma’s help when she surprisingly shows up at his doorstep (a surprise to both of them.) eventually Charlie agrees to let Emma help him and the two live together while they work on the script. They both bring their own traumas to this new “relationship” which creates tension throughout the story.

I know I’m going to be in the minority here but I did not love this book. It was quick but tried to cover some deep topics like death of a parent, caregiving, and cancer but didn’t have enough time to actually develop much of them. Emma and Charlie both have their problems and nothing that happened between them seemed even remotely convincing that they actually might like each other are thus will predictably have “a happy ending.” Granted I read this quickly in order to get through this ARC before it comes out but nothing grabbed me or emotionally tied me to the story. It was like enemies to lovers but the enemies never actually connect in a meaningful way to turn into lovers? I don’t know 🤷🏻‍♀️

Many people disagree with me so read it for yourself and decide!

I am a huge fan of rom-coms. I am a huge fan of enemies to lovers. I’m a fan of books written by Katherine Center. This book was not what I expected. I could not find a reason to love this book. The blurb had me excited to read it, getting an early copy made me so happy. The main character is not likable. She’s supposed to be funny snarky yet she’s kinda mean. The recluse action writer who kinda insta likes her is even harder to believe. She doom scrolls the internet because she takes care of her dad but can’t figure out why her heart is beating so fast and then asks this stranger to put his hand on her heart, day one, to see if her heart is beating normally?!?
She comes across as a predator in some instances. If a man did that to a woman, it’d be considered harassment, that’s exactly what she did to him. And then have the nerve to try to make him feel bad about it?! the absolute nerve.
THEN she says all that nasty stuff to her sister, accuses her of being selfish, without knowing all the facts, then says if she loses her dad because of her negligence, she will never see her sister again. When the sister counters with her own response, she has the audacity to think her sister is being mean? She never did apologize for that. That apology was only one sided. The absolute audacity.
This book made me angry. What the heck. She didn’t deserve a happy ending. She feels like she was owed something because she took care of her dad. Why? I can’t.
That’s just some of the things I felt are me not like her. This was not for me.
Someone please tell me how else to feel about this book. Did I miss something?

4 out of 5 stars - If you ask me, I'll tell you to read it.

Really liked this book. Loved the cameos from some characters in her previous stories. Definitely cried while reading this one. I enjoyed the characters.

Just wow. Katherine Center outdid herself with this one!
Emma Wheeler is a writer, who loves rom-coms, that put her life and career on hold after her dad had an accident and needed round the clock care. Ten years in, it's supposed to be her little sister's turn to step up, but until Emma gets the opportunity of a lifetime, re-writing a screenplay with THE Charlie Yates, she doesn't even consider making her sister follow through. After making the decision to go for it and flying to LA, Emma finds out, while standing on Charlie's doorstep, that one, he didn't know she was coming, and two, he has not agreed to hire her.

Charlie Yates is the "it" guy when it comes to screenplays in Hollywood. He's won all of the awards, has had all of the opportunities, and he knows everyone. He is mean, doesn't mince his words, and is unapologetically himself. Emma has read everything he's ever written, and is one of his biggest fans. But after the debacle with him not having actually hired her, and then her overhearing him in the bathroom making fun of everything she's dedicated her life's work to, she sets out to change his mind. She is going to make him believe in love, and teach him the art of writing romance.

Emma and Charlie quickly learn that they both love writing, they work well together, and they actually get along away from the writing table, too. One part of Emma's plan is to make Charlie actually experience the things he writes about in the screenplay. She tries to help him overcome his fear of water and they learn to line dance, but then he draws the line at practicing kissing. It's not until that moment that she realizes how far deep she's gotten herself.

They both have past traumas they need to work through, and they both run before they can get hurt because of them. The question is whether they can actually get over those issues and find the "happily ever after" they both deserve.

This book is funny and heartwrenching at the same time. It gives you the butterflies, and breaks your heart little by little. It's taken over the top spot as my favorite Katherine Center book, and I highly recommend everyone reads it!

Love this book! Emma and Charlie’s story read just like a rom-com which it is! I hope there will be more from this author! Great book to take to the beach!

Katherine Center does the best job of writing a romance novel with deep, realistic themes while making it feel like a sweet, light-hearted experience! She has done it again in “The Rom-Commer’s.” Emma, a ghost screenwriter, is given the job to work with Charlie, a very famous screenwriter, on a Rom-Com script. The only thing is, he doesn’t believe in love. It was so fun getting to see these two write together and fall in love.

For those who love:
🩵 Workplace Romance
🩵 Roommates
🩵 Screenwriter + Screenwriter
🩵 Cinematic
🩵 Anxiety Rep
🩵 Caretaking Rep
🩵 Guinea Pigs

Many thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for the opportunity to read this ARC.