The Rom-Commers is an engaging and well-paced rom-com featuring colorful and memorable characters.

The Rom-Commers by Katherine Center

(I try hard to avoid spoilers but this review contains one and I’ve clearly marked it…so proceed accordingly.)

Genre/Categories/Setting: Contemporary Fiction, Women’s Fiction, Romance/Rom-Com, Family Life, Sisters, Father/Daughter, Los Angeles

*This post contains Amazon affiliate links.

My Summary of The Rom-Commers:

Thanks #NetGalley @StMartinsPress for a complimentary e ARC of #TheRomCommers upon my request. All opinions are my own.

Emma is an aspiring screenwriter who has enjoyed some success while she also attends to her elderly father who needs full time care. One day, she has an opportunity to re-write a script for the famous screenwriter, Charlie Yates. She admires him and this is a break too good to pass up, so she enlists her sister to take over “dad duties” for six weeks while she works with Yates in Los Angeles. Unfortunately, Charlie Yates doesn’t appreciate the assistance and doesn’t want to write with anyone. The truth is that he really doesn’t care about the script or believe in love. Emma faces the challenge of her career: working with Charlie Yates and convincing him that love stories matter. What happens when the lines of fiction and real life become blurred? What then?

My Thoughts:

Meta

What fun! A romance/rom-com about a writing team writing a romance and stumbling toward their own romance in real life.

Tropes

Entertaining tropes relied on in this story include strangers/enemies to lovers, grumpy/sunshine, and close proximity. Although we know how these tropes will play out, the execution is fun. I will note that Charlie, the grumpy character in this duo, is beyond charmingly grumpy and borders on offensive and belligerent. Emma sees that this writing project is the opportunity of a lifetime for her career and puts up with a lot from Charlie. Even though these dynamics provide an engaging read, it took me some time to warm up to the characters.

What Worked

• Well-paced
• Witty dialogue
• Interesting dynamics
• Sweet father/daughter relationship
• Multi-layered
• The Bodyguard characters make a brief appearance
• Line dancing fun
• Dramatic HEA

What I Wish

****This sections contains a spoiler, so skip over it if you haven’t read the book.****

(The following thoughts fall under the category of personal opinion.)

I wished for more likable and healthier characters. These two need some individual counseling. However, I guess this provides the entertainment?! Charlie has experienced a great deal of hurt and has some challenges in the way he treats others. I’m not sure this can be resolved with a simple HEA.

I really wish authors would not use cancer as a plot device, especially in a rom-com where I’m not expecting or braced for a possible tragedy. In addition, I was perplexed by the execution of this complication. I realize this is an imagined world, but in the real world I would hope that more testing would be done before giving someone a terminal diagnosis. I wish this whole section could have been handled differently or that the author could have thought of another scenario to complicate their lives and not relied on cancer. As I mentioned, this is a personal opinion, but it somewhat affected my reading experience.

Content Consideration: cancer diagnosis

Recommending The Rom-Commers

Overall, I love Katherine Center and have enjoyed many of her stories. She’s an author that I follow and I’ll read her next book. I think fans of the author and entertaining rom-coms will appreciate this engaging story!

Related: My review of The Bodyguard, Hello Stranger, and What You Wish For by the same author.

My Rating:  4  Stars

Meet the Author of The Rom-Commers, Katherine Center

BookPage calls Katherine Center “the reigning queen of comfort reads.” She’s the New York Times bestselling author of ten novels, including How to Walk Away, Things You Save in a Fire, The Bodyguard, and her newest, Hello Stranger. Katherine writes laugh-and-cry books about how life knocks us down—and how we get back up. She’s been compared to both Jane Austen and Nora Ephron, and the Dallas Morning News calls her stories, “satisfying in the most soul-nourishing way.” The movie adaptation of her novel The Lost Husband (starring Josh Duhamel) hit #1 on Netflix, and the movie of her novel Happiness for Beginners, starring Ellie Kemper and Luke Grimes, opens July 27 on Netflix. Katherine’s summer 2022 book, The Bodyguard, was an instant New York Times bestseller, a People Best New Books pick, and nominated for Book of the Year by Book of the Month Club. Bestselling author Emily Henry calls The Bodyguard “a shot of pure joy,” and bestselling author Helen Hoang calls it “a perfect feel-good rom-com.” Katherine lives in her hometown of Houston, Texas, with her husband, two kids, and their fluffy-but-fierce dog.

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QOTD:

Is this new release by Katherine Center on your TBR or have you read other books by the author?

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