Perfection. Second chance romance ❤️‍🔥Honestly obsessed with anything Tarah writes!!!

Thank you so much SMP Romance for sharing this ARC with me!

I didn’t love this one. Neither of the characters were particularly likeable to me and I didn’t feel their connection was very genuine

This is my first Tarah DeWitt book & I really enjoyed her writing style and the emotional journey I went through while reading this book! I am a big hater of the miscommunication trope - so it was really hard to push through some times, the 2nd chance romance was cute!

Thank you NetGalley for the advanced copy.

Amazing writing and banter, 10/10 for all the emotions this book gave me 😭 the slow-burn was written so well, and I really really liked the wholesome ending

TWs - death of beloved grandparents, abandonment by parents, cheating by a parent

-- ty to the author, the publisher and Netgalley for an advanced copy!

It was an okay book. I enjoyed it overall but I found it to not be special. I appreciate getting the arc of it though. I has some tropes that I feel like many would enjoy.

I liked the author's dual timeline and central conflict between the two, using the renovation as the catalyst for the reconnection. What felt lacking was the connection and tension between the two characters to justify working through this conflict, making it hard to see if they actually liked each other at all. I would've enjoyed more tension and connection between them as they worked through their past history and initial state of conflict.

Tarah Dewitt is a favorite author of mine for good reason. I love her storyline and her characters. If longing, slow burn, second chance spice is your thing you'll find it here woven into a story that has you rooting for the main characters.

Another complete masterpiece by Tarah Dewitt. This book had the perfect amounts of angst, tenderness, steam, and humanity.
In a time where the world is bleak, it was so soothing to my soul to be able to read a book centered around caring and growth. Watching LaRynn and Deacon take risks with vulnerability and learn safety in an unpredictable and scary world was so meaningful.
I think they were delightfully imperfect, so humanly frustrating and joyful, and their story is remarkable. I felt so proud of them as they grew page by page.

I was very grateful to receive an ARC of this from St. Martins Press - it was such a delight <3

The Co-Op was just ok. It started off exciting and interesting, and I thought the premise was great - who doesn’t love a fake relationship/ marriage of convenience trope? I enjoyed the book a lot pretty much until the MCs got together, and then mostly felt it dragged after that. Nothing about it was awful or bad, I just never felt captivated by the book. I liked the French representation.

I loved another book of Tarah’s so I’m sure I’ll give other romances of hers another try!

Thanks NetGalley and st Martin’s press for the arc. All thoughts are mine.

Thanks to @netgalley and @stmartinspress for the #gifted copy of this book.

Rating: 4.5/5⭐️

“When you have a bad day ma fille, think about it from beginning to end. Walk your way through it. Was it really a bad day, or was it a few bad moments? What part of your day would you like to hold onto before you close your eyes? Find that good bit, and let it be the thing you go to sleep to.”

Summary: LaRynn Lavigne and Deacon Leeds had a summer fling that they have never been able to get out of their minds. They each resented the other for the next decade, from how their fling ended until their grandmothers had left them shared custody of their dilapidated building. Deacon has the construction expertise and LaRynn has the funds, as long as she gets married. So the two strike a deal: get married and stay married while living at the house until all the construction is finished. It should be fairly easy as long as feelings stay out of it.

My Thoughts: I fell in love with this book very quickly. I needed to find out what led to the animosity between LaRynn and Deacon but ate up their constant banter. Marriage of convenience is a favorite of mine and I loved that they entered into this with wanting to fix up the beloved home of their grandmothers to honor them. I love how the past and present were woven throughout the chapters and even sometimes as memories throughout the present day. It made the story flow so beautifully especially to watch their hatred become friendship and then turn to love.

Many of my favorite quotes were from LaRynn's grandmother. She always gave her such great pearls of wisdom that LaRynn used to guide her decisions. I love the one above because it made me stop and think about whether I look for the good bits throughout my day even if it was a tough one.

Read if you love:
💕Second Chance
💍Marriage of Convenience
❤️‍🔥"my wife"
⛅️Reverse grumpy x sunshine
😍Forced Proximity
🔥Sizzling Banter

4.5/ 5
this was actually really cute. we all know i love a second chance romance so i already kinda had a good feeling about this. it was just the brain break i needed after i was emotionally decimated from reading "the winners." a quick, cute, fun, fluff read when you need cotton candy for the brain. tarah dewitt is so funny and the dynamic between the leads is so charming and genuine. loved it so much.

After reading The Co-Op, I can say that I am officially obsessed with Tarah DeWitt. If she writes it, I will read it.

This book has the perfect mix of forced proximity and second chances, all wrapped up in a nostalgic location.

What i loved most was the background we got on both characters. There was such a big life to the romance they experienced.

I enjoyed this romance full of some great tropes including hate to love, second chance romance, and marriage of convenience. LaRynn and Deacon have such great chemistry full of tension and banter. They also are working through their own struggles and learning to love themselves and each other as adults having grown up instead of the teenagers full of insecurities and anger. While creating a new home they also create a new relationship, both for the better.

It’s demo day for LaRynn and Deacon. They have history that burns bright when they were young, but quickly fizzled and burned them when they grew up. Now they have to work together to renovate a home with so much history. Can they put their past aside for the sake of this home?
Ah what a ride the Co-Op was for a second chance romance! This also had marriage of convenience and a slow burn mixed in. I really enjoyed the dual timeline for LaRynn and Deacon as we learn what happened to in the past can shape who we are today.

Thanks to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for an eARC.

Tarah DeWitt delivers a charming romance in The Co-op. Childhood sparks between LaRynn Lavigne and Deacon Leeds reignite when they’re unexpectedly left co-owners of a crumbling Santa Cruz property and a marriage of convenience becomes their only way forward. DeWitt balances crackling tension, humour, and heartfelt moments as the pair navigate both renovation hurdles and emotional ones. Their growing partnership proves that building trust is often the toughest job of all. While the pace quickens near the end, the story’s warmth and wit shine throughout. A solid four-star read for fans of second-chance, slow-burn romance. Honestly, my biggest complaint is LaRynn's name was just a little too offbeat for me, every time I read it I cringed a little.

3.5/5 stars

I really enjoyed the premise of this book, but unfortunately it wasn't a second chance romance that swept me off my feet. I ultimately preferred Savor It to this book by quite a bit. The relationship development between the characters felt disjointed and frankly not quite believable to go from enemies to lovers so all-in. I also felt like the grandparents that were so important to the main characters should have been discussed more in-depth in all the flashbacks. Overall, this was a like and not a love.

Thank you to Netgalley, St. Martin's Press, and the Author for an e-ARC copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

"You called me your husband."
"Like that, did you?"
"I f***ing loved it."

Here's what to expect in The Co-Op:
- Second chance romance
- Enemies to friends to lovers (“I’m waiting to either tear into you or…” “Tear clothes off?” is the vibe 😂)
- Marriage of convenience
- ALL the forced proximity
- Dual perspectives
- Opposites attract
- Home renovations
- Grumpy sunshine (she's the grump)
- Slow burn
- A sneaky Funny Feelings crossover
- Music soundtracking everyday moments ❤️

In the beginning, it took me a while to warm up to both LaRynn and Deacon. The pair enter into a marriage of convenience so LaRynn can access the money needed to renovate the home they now both own.

LaRynn was closed off as she'd been hurt too many times before, by both her parents and Deacon after an ill-fated summer fling when she was 18. But she slowly let down her walls and let Deacon in. It was kind of beautiful to see them both be vulnerable and give each other little pieces of themselves.

Deacon was her opposite in many ways and a total charmer, but they had this understanding and connection through both being from imperfect families. He worshipped her and allowed her to finally just embrace her messy imperfect self. "But someone loves me at home. Someone who loves my sharp edges as much as all my softer ones too."

It was an Angsty (with a capital A) and complicated journey to the end (both personally and renovation-wise), but the character growth was flawless. It was real, it was raw and it was memorable.

Liked it a lot, didn't fall in LOVE though.

With second chance, forced proximity, dual POV, interesting characters and a fair amount of tension between them, there is a lot to like about this book. I loved the idea of two people coming back together (probably one of my favorite tropes) and the reason for that being their grandmothers/restoring their old property. Swoon.

I will also admit that the spice was good, too, for those that prefer it in their books (I could go either way)

However, if there was a little less miscommunication, a better reason for her to stay away for so long, and higher stakes with the conflict, I would easily give this 5 stars. I totally get being young and stupid, but I can't imagine still having issues communicating about the past and the present almost a decade later. LaRynn staying away for a while also came across a little selfish, but perhaps the author intended for the main character to be a little unlikable at first?

Honestly, the ingredients are there and I will absolutely pick up more from Tarah! Great job on the book and the cover!

Fun romance novel set in a beautiful location! Had a lot of my favorite tropes and has a great audiobook companion too.

The Co-op by Tarah DeWitt follows LaRynn Lavigne and Deacon Leeds, two former flames who are thrown back together after being named the two owners of a family home.

LaRynn and Deacon have a complicated history. After meeting through their grandmothers, they agreed that their relationship would stay purely physical, but relationships like that don't often stay solely physical, especially with people like LaRynn and Deacon. When one confesses their feelings for the other, both end up with broken hearts and what ensues is years of silence until they both end up back in the same, nostalgic beach town trying to figure out what they want to do with the home their grandmothers once owned.

I've never read any of Tarah DeWitt's books before, so I wasn't sure what to expect, but I absolutely LOVED this book! Her sense of humor is infectious and she has such strength in character building.

Romance is my favorite genre to read, hands down. But sometimes, I find that while the romance in a novel can be amazing, the characters can lack a certain degree of depth. And while I have no problem with this, it also was NOT the case in The Co-op.

LaRynn and Deacon were multi-dimensional characters each with their own backstories that added so much to what could've been just a fun romance novel. I loved each of these characters so much and I really enjoyed the fact that you typically get a grumpy/sunshine romance where the male character is grumpy and the female is sunshine and in this case, it was flipped. I loved the character development in this novel – there was one point where one of the characters said, 'I don't care if it sounds pathetic anymore' and this one line is just one example of how much these characters grow with and for each other. LaRynn and Deacon feel like completely mature, developed versions of themselves by the time you reach the end of the book.

The Co-op is also a unique novel because of the incorporation of music and the concept of having a soundtrack to one's life.

My only piece of criticism is that I wish there was more female friendship (or friendship in general) portrayed in this book. I loved the romantic relationship LaRynn and Deacon shared, but I do wish that we could have seen some more moments of friendship between LaRynn, Elyse, and June and also friendship between Deacon and Jensen.

Overall though, I loved this novel!