Thanks @netgalley @smpromance and @authortarahdewitt for the chance to read and review The Co-Op. It released on November 12, 2024.

If you haven't already discovered the brilliance of Tarah DeWitt's writing, please let The Co-Op be your gateway book and then you can thank me when you devour her entire catalog (and pre-order Left of Forever).

Told in dual timelines, The Co-Op follows the love story of law school dropout LaRynn and contractor Deacon who are forced back into each other's lives when their beloved grandmothers bequeath their beautiful (but dilapidated) Santa Cruz house to them. It's been years since they had one HOTTT summer, but the hurt feelings haven't faded, and now they're expected to live in a construction zone and scrap by to get the house ready for sale? It's a recipe for disaster, only made more tense when they have to marry in order for LaRynn to get her inheritance and pay for her half of the renovations.

Filled with crackling chemistry and more twists and turns than a drive down Highway 17, I love, love, LOVED their love story. You won't want to miss it.

Steam: 🔥🔥🔥🔥
Tropes: forced proximity, enemies to lovers, second chance romance, marriage of convenience, touch her and die, secret softies

LaRynn and Deacon had a past as teens and Now they’re forced to work together, in fact they might have to do more.

When a marriage of convince seems the best way to help each other out, I think we all know where this is going.

The story is cute and fresh. I liked the characters and their journey.

Thank you St Martins Press and NetGalley for the ARC.

Cute romance, good writing. Love the premise. I did hear this was a rewrite from the original publication. Curious as to what changed.

I received an advance reader copy (ARC) of *The Co-op* in exchange for my honest opinion. I found the beginning and end of the book to be incredible, but the middle section felt sluggish. It seemed that Dewitt got a bit bogged down while trying to address LaRynn and Deacon’s issues with their fathers and their reluctance to communicate in healthy ways. If they had resolved their mutual pain and past traumas sooner, I would have given this book a higher rating. Unfortunately, by the time they rebuilt their love for one another, it felt like it was too late.

I would also like to express my gratitude to St. Martin’s Press for providing the ARC.

Rounded up from 3.5 stars. I really wanted to like this one more than I ended up liking it. I felt like the beginning was a little slow for me and it took a while for me to get into this. I really ended up enjoying it quite a bit. I loved the flashbacks to their youth and when they were originally together and then showing how they were kind of enemies at the start of the book. I loved the enemies to lovers and marriage of convenience. I just wish we got a little more of the actual house renovations. I did enjoy the character growth and the way that both of them grew up and owned up to their past mistakes. The spicy scenes were good! But the pacing at the end felt a little too fast. I did like seeing the epilogue but felt like I could’ve lived without it.

Thank you so much SMP and Tarah DeWitt for the privilege to read this early. It's now one of my favorite reads of 2024 and one of my all time favorite Marriage of convenience stories ever. 🫶

It's been weeks and I still think about them daily. LaRynn and Deacon are so... special. Hurt, imperfect, snarky and so in love I cannot deal. I am obsessed with the way they are pining and obsessed with each other. 🫠🥹

Their story left me staring at the wall, thinking I'm ruined. Ruined for second chance romance, for marriage of convenience, real marriage, relationships, writing and everything in between. In the best way, obviously.

I don't know how the initial edition was and what was added on after the rewrite/republishing, but what I just read was a masterpiece. In feelings, tension, heartbreak, healing, realism, complex imperfect characters pining, spicing and all the delicious little things.

I don't know what Tarah put into this but I stayed up until 3 am reading and proceeded to walk all day in a daze, with some of those iconic lines playing on loop in my head.

As usual when I get so invested and in love with a story, I don't find the adequate words to review and describe it. Which is so aggravating because I want everyone to read it and feel what I felt.😭

I have over 120 highlights. 20 notes.Tell me SMP what do I do with those? Do you accept tears and incoherent ramblings and 2AM DMs as a review?Because that's all I have. (I did post some quotes on my bookstagram though).

I will leave you with Deacon and LaRynn's words for now, because the way they felt about each other pretty much portrays how I felt about this story. It's absolutely intense and real and maddening and how can it be super hot and spicy but ALSO slow burn (as in, nothing really happens until the 75-80ish% mark???)

Anyways. Thank you.

"I am a fcking wreck.
I feel undone.
I feel like I'm in a trance." (Deacon)

"You ruined me for everyone else." (LaRynn)

Yes. What they said.

So this is more than a story about two people meeting after a few years, years while they grew, changed, dealt with their own sets of obstacles and well, adulting, unresolved feels and hopelessness. It's more about getting into a marriage and renovated the house they ironically inherited together. It's more than fixing crumbling walls and walking on tip topes around each other or their feelings, their quips, pranks and spice. It's all the little things in between. It's where the story shined the most, in showing their true selves in realistic situations and loving with everything they got. 🫶

This was the second DeWitt book I have read and I was so hoping to like this one better than my first read. But I did not. The characters fell flat and the pacing of the story was just too slow for me.

I ate this book up!!! The amount that I real aged to both main characters was mind blowing. The growth both personally and as a couple that they both did was so well written. The amount of tropes all wrapped up into one book was something I was worried about, but they were all done so well and it didn’t feel excessive, just perfect. This is on my top 2024 list for sure! Right up there with Just for the Summer by Abby!

“They say love and construction don't mix.
By that logic, hate and construction may as well be condemned.”

I absolutely devoured this book in two sittings. It was that good. We’re at the point that if Tarah writes it, I will read it. This book had all my favorite tropes and I am living for them completely.

AND THE SLOW BURN. The best of the best,

I don’t know what else to say except that everyone needs to read this book immediately.

A very special thank you to St. Martin’s Press and NetGalley for an ARC in exchange for an honest review!

Tarah will forever be one of my favorite authors for a number of reasons. Including her ability to create characters that are so beyond real. This book and all her others are a breath of fresh air. I adored all the renovations this book went under and am so happy to have been able to read both versions.

Reading this book felt like falling in love again in real time.
These characters were so beautifully imperfect, I loved every moment of unraveling their love story.
Would highly recommended.

Thank you to SMP and Tarah DeWitt for the opportunity to read this eARC in exchange for an honest review.

If Tarah writes it, I'm reading it. She became an autobuy author to me last year when I first picked up a book of hers and promptly devoured her entire backlog.

I loved The Co-Op the first time around and fell even more in love with it after its renovation. Getting to see LaRynn and Deacon again was such a treat. And loved what she did with Elyse and Jenson.

🛠 Second Chance
🏚 Marriage of Convenience
🛠 Roommates
🏚 Its Always Been You
🛠 Black Cat FMC & Golden Retriever MMC

I was so excited to receive this because I recently read Savor It by Tarah DeWitt and loved it so much. In my opinion, the FMC was written immaturely. I don't like it when grown adults are holding on to anger over things that happened in high school. I couldn't connect with the characters or the story and the whole Dot thing was a major ick.

I really enjoyed my first book by Tarah DeWitt, Savor It, so the Co-op was one of my anticipated reads. Unfortunately it didn't quite live up to my expectations. I enjoyed the tropes : marriage of convenience, forced proximity, enemies to lovers, no third act break up, and second chance. As well as how real the characters were. They were messy and broken but worked though things in a realistic way. It wasn't all sunshine and roses.

Where it lost several stars for me: the book did NOT need to be this long. There was a lot of repetitive filler. Also, hoy miscommunication. If they had just had a simple adult conversation instead of acting like the teenagers they were when they met, we could have gotten more of a second chance aspect. And for a book plot based on renovating, not much of that was actually touched on in the story.

One other small pet peeve, how the heck to you pronounce LaRynn's name?? Its unusual, but never touched on. I kept saying Lauren in my head, but caught on it every time I had to read her name.

So while I enjoyed parts of the book it didn't live up to my previous read from DeWitt. That said I would still pick up another title by the author having loved Savor it.

Thank you so much to St.Martin’s Press and NetGalley for gifting me an e-arc for the re-release of The Co-Op.

The Co-op is a marriage of convenience, second chance romance. LaRynn Lavigne and Deacon Leeds are brought back together when their grandmothers leave them a dilapidated Santa Cruz building. They decide to get married in order to access LaRynn’s trust fund so they can fix the property and make a profit off it.

If you love Christina Lauren’s Love and Other Words, I think you would really love this book.

This was such a fun read and I found myself kicking my feet when cute things happened. I will be reading more of Tarah Dewitts books.
LaRynn is definitely the definition of a black cat girl and I’m happy she found someone who loves her for who she is. Deacon the man that you are.
“Stay my wife. Forever, LaRynn. I don’t care where we end up or what we do as long as I have you.”
This is will be forever in my head. ❤️

Giving that this was my first book I was reading by Terah Dewitt, I didn’t know what to expect. Duly noted, I’m down bad for second chance and/or marriage of convenience (when done right). This book gave me that on a silver platter.

I absolutely fell in love with Deacon and LaRynn. Hell, I’ll fake marry Deacon too if I had the chance. The marriage of convenience with force proximity brought forward flames that started 8 years ago (ages 18-19) when having a summer fling.

This book provided teenage heartbreak, insecure adulthood, grief and a whole lot of renovations. Not only the renovation of the home they inherited from their grandmothers, but also their traumatized hearts. I can’t wait to read more of Terah’s catalog.

I would like to thank Terah Dewitt, St. Martin’s Press and NetGalley for the eARC in exchange for my honest review.

tarah dewitt is such a good writer; i love reading her work! getting to experience falling in love the way tarah writes it is truly such a joy, and i had a blast reading this one !

This story brings together the tropes of marriage of convenience and forced proximity over the backdrop of building a solid foundation between two characters who are flawed, guarded, and silently hoping they can rebuild what they both lost of each other years before. With dual timelines and dual POVs, it was easy to piece together how their shared history plays into their perceptions of what might be if they gave their unfinished romance a different, more hopeful ending, with lighthearted banter making their chemistry very believable.

It did take me a while to connect with these characters, and the pacing felt quite slow for the first half which made it somewhat difficult for me to be invested in their story as it started to unfold. Their building connection did feel much easier to root for when it did pick up in the last half of the story as their communication was also developing which was refreshing to see. While it wasn't a favourite, this was a cute and spicy second chance romance for something lighthearted and more character-driven.


Thank you to Tarah DeWitt, St. Martin’s Press, and Netgalley for an ARC copy of this book in exchange for an honest review!

My favorite from Tarah DeWitt yet! Loved the character growth and the complexity of the story beyond the romance.

My first Tarah DeWitt book and enjoyed it so much!

Teens brought together thanks to their grandmothers falling in love get off to a rocky start and a rockier reunion years later. LaRynn and Deacon are forced back together to handle a major project to honor their grandmothers and have a chance to make things right between themselves.

Both main characters seemed so real and relatable and I love that in books now. Both having gone through some rough stuff growing up, they’re battling it as adults and learning how to do so while also learning how to love someone else in a healthy way. This story was super sweet and I loved the CA setting. Looking forward to more from Tarah!

Especially great for lovers of: second chances, forced proximity, and fake relationships.

Thanks so much to NetGalley and the publisher for this ARC!