Tarah DeWitt is the only person that makes me actually look forward to reading a second chance romance. I read the indie version years ago and I was so happy to get to experience the trad version as well.

The Co-Op is so full of real and gritty emotion, laugh out loud humor, and, of course, good vibrations.

LaRynn and Deacon are so good for each other. LaRynn deserves someone to be soft with and Deacon deserves someone as strong and loyal as LaRynn.

And if you talk shit about Larry you'll have to deal with me. If you can make it through Deacon.

This book was truly enjoyable. However, I felt that the ending was a bit rushed compared to the pace of the rest of the story. The banter was top tier and I’d recommend this book to anyone who wants a fun second chance read

LaRynn and Deacon haven’t seen each other since a decade before when they were teenagers in the midst of a summer fling and Deacon broke LaRynn’s heart. Now they have been awkwardly reunited as co-owners of their married grandmothers’ home. The home is completely run-down and in need of major renovations before they can even begin to sell it. While Deacon has the construction skills to complete the renovations, he has no money to do so, and while LaRynn has a trust fund with plenty of money, the only way she can gain access to the funds is to get married. LaRynn and Deacon agree to a marriage of convenience in order to gain access to the money they need and thus start working on the house together, living in the house while they work.

I do love a good second chance romance, and in this one, I love how DeWitt uses the backdrop of working on this renovation project as a way for LaRynn and Deacon 1) to realize they really do still have feelings for one another that are way more than just a teen summer fling, and 2) to really confront what happened in the past and what is happening between them now. There were both some emotional moments as they explored their past, as well as some more rom-com worthy moments courtesy of the home renovation scenes.

This was my second read from DeWitt this year and I look forward to reading more from her!

LaRyann left the California coast in her rearview mirror years ago. Following the deaths of her grandma and her grandma’s wife, LaRyann finds herself back at their house with the last person she wants to see again: Deacon, her grandma’s wife’s grandson and the man who broke her heart when they were still kids.

I’ve seen this book everywhere, but never picked it up. Marriage of convenience isn’t my usual trope, but it worked so well here. I ate this book up! I loved the forced proximity of LaRyann and Deacon being forced to live in this crumbling house together. There are no doors! All of the quirks and disasters that sprung up added to the tension in the story and I thought it was very well done. While we get flashbacks to their summers together, this book was very much a slow burn. Both main characters are pretty stubborn, and I love how you actually see their growth in communicating with each other. By the time they reconnect I was kicking my little feet.

Read if you like:
Second chance romance
Forced proximity
Marriage of convenience
A beautiful coastal setting
DIY shows

Thank you to St. Martin’s Press and NetGalley for a review copy. I’m so glad to have finally read this book.

i think that this is a solid romance read! perfect for fans of second chance romance, change and grow characters, and difficult parental relationships explored through fiction. this felt a little disjointed sometimes, or rather the changes of heart or opinion were kind of sudden, but i suppose that is a part of the human condition so not much to be upset about really! just personal preference. and honestly kudos to them for doing a huge reno together in the state they were in! (legos and hanging pictures are trials in my marriage.)

thank you to netgalley & st. martins press for sending me this ARC in exchange for an honest review :)

I think this is an unpopular opinion because so many people on bookstagram love this one. I loved Funny Feelings, but I didn’t connect to the characters in this book. It was sweet and spicy but not a fave. The middle was way too slow for me. Marriage of convenience also isn’t always my fave! I did like the foxed proximity and second chance aspect however! The home renovation aspect was fun, and I enjoyed the connection the MCs had through their grandmothers. I just wish I believed more in their love and story. If you’re a fan of marriage of convenience I think you may like The Co-op!

🔨marriage of convenience
🔨dual POV
🔨dual timeline
🔨home renovation
🔨spicy

The Co-Op was such a fun read. I love that Tarah gives us these incredibly insightful and deep characters, that we get to unpack while reading swoon worthy love stories. I couldn’t help but fall in love with both Deacon and LaRynn from day one and rooting for their love.

If you like the following this one is for you:
Second chance romance
Found family
Overcoming family struggles and expectation
Finding connection in grief
Volleyball mishaps
Home construction and romance

Thanks to NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for an ARC of this book!
I liked this story when I first started it. I thought it was cute with some spice and fun banter. I did find myself a bit bored towards the end as I never fully enjoyed either MC. Overall, it was a cute read and I would recommend it!

tarah dewitt will forever be one of my favorite authors of all time and books like this are the reason why!

returning to her grandmother's home where she used to spend summers as a child, larynn is faced with the task of renovating it in order to put it up for sale. however, she isn't the sole owner of the property - half of the home has been left to deacon, the guy she had a summer fling with when she was a teen. now they must work together to fix up the property, get married to access her trust to pay for the expenses, and live in close quarters for the time being.

although tropes aren’t everything, this book was truly the perfect mix of them! second chance romance x enemies to lovers x forced proximity - what more could you want? larynn and deacon were just so perfect together and I loved getting to see them rebuild the foundation of their relationship. getting to see their history but also them revisiting their feelings for each other was so fun and their love for each other was just so real and tender. the story just kept getting better and the ending almost had me crying.
also, getting to see their backstories and watching their individual growth throughout as they dealt with their own hardships was so wonderful to see and very well written! this book was simply too good and I can’t wait for more tarah dewitt books in the future!

3.75 ⭐️

I do love desperation! The Co-Op is a second chance/enemies to lovers/forced proximity romance. LaRynn and Deacon inherit shared ownership of the Co-Op that their "grands" lived in. Through a length and hefty renovation project, they both confront their feelings for each other and the relationship they had in the past as teens.

Some of the parts of this story were a little drawn out, and even though I was ultimately happy they were together in the end, it was hard to get behind them at first as extremely stubborn and confusing characters. Not the best DeWitt romance, but still a good one!

The Co-op is a great second chance romance with fun tropes including forced proximity, marriage of convenience, and slow burn!

I absolutely loved this bookm. The two main characters were amazing together. I loved the character development and how the two admitted to the faults in their previous relationship and were able to move on from it.

This book was so cute! I loved the romance
This contains a few of my favorite tropes such as marriage of convenience, forced proximity, and slow burn.
I totally enjoyed the slow burn. There's nothing better than reading about how two characters are slowly developing feelings for each other. And the yearning!! omg I loved it.
I also really enjoyed the fact that it is a dual pov book. I think there isn't a lot of dual pov romance books out there so it's definitely nice to find one. I really liked the fact that we can read the story from both sides and get 2 different perspectives.

The main character is just really unlikable, and I don't feel any tension or love for the relationship.
There's too much hate between them. And the marriage of convenience isn't as thrilling as it should be. It's just feeling like a chore to read.

Tarah DeWitt is now a must-read author for me. This is the second book of hers I’ve read and loved. The coastal California setting was perfect - I felt like I was right there with the characters. Deacon and LaRynn were complicated and messy and perfect for each other. Theirs is a second chance romance, and I loved the chapters that gave us a glimpse of them falling in love as teens. After reconnecting, their miscommunication didn’t last overly long - thank goodness! Their friendship was so sweet, and their love for each other and their friends/family made my heart melt. Absolutely recommend for contemporary romance readers - all the stars!
Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the eARC to read and review. All opinions are my own.

Romance and Renovation – what could possibly go wrong?

LaRynn Lavigne and Deacon Leeds have inherited the building where their grandmothers happily lived as a couple for years. The building needs a lot of work; some of the earlier renovations the grandmothers did weren’t quite up to code, and now a bunch of money is needed to just bring the building up to code, never mind actually improving it. LaRynn had money, but when she dropped out of school, she was cut off; the only way she can access her trust fund now is to get married, of course. To Deacon, of course. Complicating all this is the fact that a decade or so earlier, LaRynn and Deacon had a summer romance. They were young at the time and ended up hurting each other so much so that when Deacon first asks LaRynn for help with the renovation, she totally blows him off.

I enjoyed this book. It wasn’t super complicated – a perfect beach read. It was so sweet how they … grew up? … during the renovation, acknowledging what didn’t work before and admitting their flaws to each other and understanding each other’s flaws. All the loose ends did get tied up quickly at the end, but the epilogue was lovely.

Highly recommended. I received a copy of this from netGalley.com that I voluntarily reviewed.

I love second chance romances but there's something about Tara Dewitt's writing that seems very forced to me and I can't connect. This is the second time this has happened to me with the author but maybe we should part ways once and for all. I don't think it's a bad book,

I'm sure it will find its audience but I couldn't connect with the main character which made it difficult to get involved in the story.

This just wasn't my cup of tea. Some of the triggers were difficult. I couldn't connect with the writing style or the main character and needed a stronger inciting incident.

Thank you NetGally and St. Martin’s Press for an arc copy of this rerelease!

I’ve enjoyed every Tarah DeWitt book I’ve read and this was no exception. While I’m a huge fan of the second-chance trope, I’m also a huge hater of miscommunication so this was right in the middle for me.

After the passing of their grandmothers, LaRynn and Deacon have to work together to remodel and sell the house left in their names. The only way to do the remodel is entering a marriage of convenience to access her trust. Thus begins the angsiest roommate situation imaginable.

The timeline goes back and forth between present day and the summer they met, before LaRynn left for college. That summer they fell in love with an abrupt ending, creating a lasting rivalry. I loved the pacing of the back story throughout the chapters and the duel POVs.

My favorite part of this read was the banter and the fun references (PIVOT!). I felt like some chapters did drag a bit and I was chomping at the bit for these two to just talk it out. The extended release did make this more enjoyable for me though I think. That final epilogue gave me all the warm and fuzzies.

Highly recommend to anyone who is in need of a “Sweet Home Alabama” esc rom-com.

As much as I want to be, I don’t think I’m the right audience for Tarah Dewitt. Something about her writing doesn’t appeal to me—I think it just never really comes alive. This is a nice enough story with enemies to lovers/forced proximity/second chance vibes, but I didn’t care about LaRynn and Deacon (and I hated their names).

I've always loved a second chance romance and The Co-Op is no different. Renovating a house is the perfect scenario to bring Deacon and LaRynn back together in the place they fell in (and out?) of love in the first place and experience the magic all over again.

I really adored our two main characters, Deacon and LaRynn but I also loved all of the side characters as well (Sally especially). The world, characters, and storyline felt so developed and complete that everything and everyone had a purpose throughout the story. I loved the idea of the plot but it fell just a tad short for me in the sense that I wish we had a little more of the renovation process, especially the struggles that people face and how exhausting it can be. Overall, I had a great time reading and could feel the characters chemistry the entire time!

The Co-Op is such a sweet and fun romcom with forced proximity, marriage of convenience, and a dash of angst in the form of grief and parental trauma. While it was my first Tarah DeWitt book, it will not be my last!