Loved!! Graham - perfect! Claire - perfect! LOVED!

I loved meeting Claire and Graham in Would You Rather but I did not realize how much I would love their story. Let me just tell you—I LOVED IT. So much! I loved Graham’s complexity and Claire’s background.

Honestly, this is one of my favorites for 2023!

Thank you, NetGalley, for an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.

This book made me swoon! It was incredible, I LOVED it!

Graham was just the most perfect, adorable MMC. His development and growth throughout the story is just flawless. And his love letters to Claire! Chef's kiss!

You must read this if you enjoy:
- friends to lovers
- forced proximity
- dual POV
- friends with benefits
- banter
- she takes care of him

I wasn't sure I would love the FWB trope, but it really wasn't an issue here! I actually loved how the characters were already friends at the beginning of the story, which meant we got some quality banter right off the bat!

Honestly, the tension between the characters, their friendship first, then the feelings they started to feel for one another: it was beautiful!

There were no explicit scenes (fade to black), just dirty talk and kisses, which I didn't mind!

The Roommate Pact is connected to Would You Rather by the author, but it can be read as a stand alone! I haven't read Would You Rather yet, but it's now definitely at the top of my TBR!

I recommend this book to everyone! If you're a romance reader, you won't want to miss The Roommate Pact, out Aug. 1, 2023!

Claire and Graham's story was a great way to come out of a reading slump, I adored them even through their struggles. These two roommates came together for a swoon worthy romance read and I'd without a doubt recommend.

As this was a highly anticipated summer 2023 read, I knew it would be a perfect beach read. There's good humor counterbalanced with everyday struggles on both MC's sides. I don't always go for friends-with-benefits, but I loved the mashup with a side of epistolary romance, marriage pact, forced proximity, and an intimate friendship circle. The emails from Graham into the void were my favorite ways to dive into his character and mindset evolution.
Graham and Claire have become de-facto friends through a relationship between their best friends. Graham moves into Claire's spare room, knowing that their constant bickering and his Claire-hating-dog would be potential for issues. Jokingly, they agree to a marriage pact when Claire complains that she can't seem to find "the one". But underneath all of their playful animosity seems to be the kind of chemistry one can only hope for. The only problem is Graham's refusal to ever attempt a serious and committed relationship.
I'm a big fan of Allison's and between this, Perfect Distraction, and Would You Rather, can't wait to see her continue to write fun and heartfelt romances with her medical insight. Keeping my eyes and ears out for her next release!
Thank you to HTP Books for the gifted copy. All thoughts are my own.

Thank you NetGalley, MIRA, and Allison Ashley for the advanced copy of The Roommate Pact in exchange for my honest review.

After reading and loving Would You Rather last year, I thought I could not ship a couple harder than Mia and Noah. Enter: Claire and Graham.

Their banter was *chefs kiss.* Very sarcastic and at times biting, and it reminded me a lot of the relationship I have with my own husband, so naturally I loved it. The ending had me ugly crying, I was so DEEPLY connected to and invested in these characters I cared so much about how their stories ended up.

At this point Allison Ashley is unquestionably an auto-buy author for me. I love the way she writes love. This one is out next week, August 1!

WHY DID I NOT READ THIS BOOK SOONER?!?
I absolutely loved Would You Rather when I read it earlier this year, but I put off reading this book for some reason that I can’t fathom now.
This is definitely one of my favorite books that I have read this year. It was so cute! DROP EVERYTHING AND PICK THIS BOOK UP NOW!
First, I absolutely love Graham. He is officially a new favorite book boyfriend. It is impossible love him after reading his emails to Claire.
Claire and Graham are also just the cutest. I loved their banter in the first book, which made me really hopeful for this book, but their banter exceeded expectations. It’s like a bizarre mix of enemies to lovers and friends to lovers, leading to some of the best banter that I’ve possibly ever read. Their chemistry was nothing less than phenomenal.
If I haven’t already convinced you to drop everything and read this book, this book also has some of the best romance. Like, it truly convinced me that Graham and Claire are soulmates. Watching them overcome their fears was honestly beautiful.

I absolutely adored this book!! The banter between the characters had me laughing out loud!! I didn’t realize it was a sequel, but had no issues with the story. I’m going back to read “Would You Rather”

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an advanced copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. THE ROOMMATE PACT releases on August 1st, 2023!
Longtime roommates Claire and Graham have a pact that they will get married if they are still single by the time they are forty. Graham hasn't seriously dated anybody as an adult, and as Claire approaches her mid-thirties, she worries that her failed previous relationships are a sign that she is never going to find her happily-ever-after. After Claire and Graham decide to enter a friends-with-benefits arrangement, Graham becomes seriously injured when hiking. As an ER nurse, Claire presumes the role as Graham's primary caregiver. The two ultimately realize there is more than friendly and mutual attraction between them. However, Claire's father's risky lifestyle led to his untimely death, and Claire struggles with falling for Graham due to this career and hobbies that could put his life at risk.
This was a cute read! I am not a fan of third-person romance, but it worked well in this case. This book was honestly hilarious and well written. I liked how both of the characters struggled with being emotionally vulnerable in relationships for two very different reasons, and they dealt with this fear in two very different ways.
I really liked the author's portrayal of Claire's role as a nurse, as I feel like nurse representation is often super inaccurate in books. The author's depiction of Graham's loss of independence, due to his injury, was spot on and super important to this story. The caregiving scenes were so cute, and the banter between the two main characters was top notch!
I am a sucker for pets, and Graham's sassy pup added a sweet element to the character's relationship. I lovvvveeeddddd how she fell in love with Claire by the end of the story. So. Stinking. Cute.
I feel like I would have enjoyed this book more if I had read the first book in this series. While these books can be read as standalone novels, I feel that I missed out on some critical character and relationship building elements that seem to be in the first book of the series. Either way, I enjoyed this novel, and I would consider reading the other books in this series in the future.

3/5 stars

This was a cute book about roommates turned lovers. If you’re a fan of that trope, I think you will like this book. The characters were well developed, and they had good chemistry. There are definitely some heavier topics in here that you may want to look into trigger warnings for.

Where this falls flat for me is in the execution. I don’t generally hate on closed door/fade to black, but in this book it didn’t work. The execution was clumsy, and for two characters who literally have a sex pact it was a poor choice to cut the scenes where they were cut.

*I received a free ARC of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review

This book is a lot of fun! It took my mind off the stressors of the day and kept me interested in the story. I enjoyed the characters and the unique plot line. The writing is witty and kept me wondering what would happen next. I really liked it!

Blurb below:


All of the fun, none of the heartache…as long as they stick to the agreement.

The proposition is simple: if ER nurse Claire Harper and her roommate, firefighter Graham Scott, are still single by the time they’re forty, they’ll take the proverbial plunge together…as friends with benefits. Maybe it’s the wine, but in the moment, Claire figures the pact is a safe-enough deal, considering she hasn’t had much luck in love and he’s in no rush to settle down. Like, at all. Besides, there’s no way she could ever really fall for Graham and his thrill-seeking ways. Not after what happened to her father…

Just as things begin to heat up way before the proposed deadline, Graham’s injured in a serious rock climbing accident—and he needs Claire’s help to heal. She’ll do whatever it takes to nurse him back to health…even if it means moving in to Graham’s bed and putting up with his little dog, who hates her. But with this no-strings arrangement taking a complicated turn, keeping “for now” from turning into “forever” isn’t as easy as they’d planned.

I just reviewed The Roommate Pact by Allison Ashley. #TheRoommatePact #NetGalley

Rating: 4.5 Stars

CW: Injury; death of a parent; death; chronic illness; medical content; bullying; car accident

“That’s the thing about feelings. They don’t always need to be expressed. Some are just meant to be felt.”

This book was not what I expected, and I mean that in the best possible way. I thought this would be a cute, tension-filled romance between two roommates denying their true feelings toward each other. And while we did get that, we also got so much more. The Roommate Pact is a beautiful representation of all that love and a relationship should be. I swear it touched a part of my soul.

If ER nurse Claire Harper and her roommate, firefighter Graham Scott, are still single by age 40, they’ll take the plunge together as friends with benefits. Considering Claire’s been unlucky in love and he’s in no rush to settle down, it seems a safe-enough deal to make as there is no chance they’d ever really fall for each other. As things start heating up between these two roommates way before the deadline, Graham is injured in a serious rock-climbing accident, leaving him unable to speak for a bit and bedridden for at least a month with a broken leg. Graham needs Claire’s help to heal, and she’ll do whatever it takes to nurse him back to health, including staying in his bed. But when their no-strings arrangement starts getting complicated by feelings, moving beyond their friends-with-benefits to a real relationship isn’t as easy as they planned.

The Roommate Pact might be one of the most romantic books I’ve read in a while. The love that Graham and Claire feel for each other is everything you want love to be. It’s so pure and deep and caring. Their relationship is about loving all the parts of the other person and finding that person you can expose your soul to – even the parts you keep secret from others. It’s about not wanting to change the other person, but accepting them for who they are, flaws and all. It’s the type of love and relationship I think we all seek.

I adored how Claire and Graham’s relationship developed beyond friends, beyond lovers. They are each other’s person, and it just took some time to realize. The pacing of their relationship was beautiful. It was a slow and steady fall into love, with just the right amount of lust sprinkled in. I’m so glad we got both Claire and Graham’s perspectives in this book, as it amped up the emotions and helped me be invested in the progression of their relationship. I also loved how Allison Ashley leveraged emails in this book to help peel back the curtain from Graham’s carefree, snarky exterior to show us his softer, more emotional side. More than one of his emails made me cry, as they were just so beautiful. And the love he has for Claire and how he expressed it – I am beyond words to describe how it made me feel.

This book is fade to black, but I don’t think you will care as the emotions are so good! Shifting the focus away from their physical relationship, which, albeit important to the book’s premise, did allow the emotions Graham and Claire were experiencing to shine. There is a bit of a third-act break-up, but this was probably one of the best-executed third-act break-ups I’ve ever seen. It was heartwrenching (I may have cried), but it made sense for the characters. They both knew exactly why it happened and wished it didn’t need to, but it was stuff neither of them could fix without therapy and time. But they do the work, and the reunion is so much sweeter for it in the end.

I absolutely adore Graham and want to protect this man at all costs. He is the most perfect, charming, caring man, and I don’t know how no one has seen that before now. He falls HARD for Claire. He seemed to fall first, and he is all in on her and willing to put his heart on the line for the first time. He’s had some truly terrible experiences when it comes to relationships in the past that have deeply scarred him, and all I wanted to do was hug him. He deserves the world. His relationship with his family is so caring and sweet – you can feel the love shine through. Watching him work through his injury and start to evaluate his own actions and why he acts the way he does with extreme sports and risks helped forge a strong connection with him. I felt like you really got in his head and got to see all sides of him, and I loved being able to experience that.

Claire took me a second to figure out, but once you understand the trauma from her childhood and how it’s shaped her perspective on life, all the pieces started to come together. I felt a deep connection with her desire to find her person, her partner, as we’re the same age and in very romantic situations at the start. I liked that she could acknowledge her flaws and what stopped her from moving things forward with Graham. She knows it’s her trauma talking but also knows she cannot move past it at that moment in time. She needs to work on herself before she can let Graham in how she clearly wants to.

I will admit that I was not expecting this book to be so heavy, especially with a cartoon cover. Graham and Claire have had some truly terrible things happen in their lives, including losing those they love tragically, and it’s had a profound impact on them as characters. Some parts were a bit hard to read, including Graham getting injured and Claire’s reaction to it, but I don’t think this book would be the same without these moments. I also have to applaud Ashley’s writing, as this book had the perfect amount of banter and humor to balance out the heavier moments. It never felt overwhelming or bleak, and the love between Claire and Graham helped this book feel hopeful and inspiring.

It takes a lot for a book to make me cry multiple times when it is not trying to be sad, but this book did that. The emotions expressed in this book and Ashley’s writing touched a part of my soul and made me feel everything. Half the time, I cried because the love Graham and Claire were feeling was so beautiful – and isn’t the best type of cry? When you’re so overwhelmed by the writing, the characters, and the emotions, that it makes you feel something? That’s exactly what this book did.

The Roommate Pact was my first book by Allison Ashley, but immediately after finishing it, I added Would You Rather to my TBR to get the backstory of Claire and Graham’s friends Mia and Noah’s relationship. I want to read more from this author in the future, as it takes a lot for a book to stir such strong emotions in me.

If The Roommate Pact wasn’t on your radar yet, take this as a sign to get it on there and grab this when it comes out on August 1!

Thank you to Spark Point Studio and MIRA for the ARC. All thoughts, ideas, and opinions expressed in this review are my own.

The Roommate Pact follows Claire and Graham, friends who had promised each other that if they're still single by the time they hit 40, they'll get married. Except that changes when Graham gets injured and Claire ends up taking care of him.

Honestly this was just really fantastic. I love a good friends to lovers/forced proximity kind of thing, plus the banter and chemistry between Claire & Graham was also fantastic. It fun, sexy, but also really heartfelt and sweet!

REVIEW: The Roommate Pact ⭐⭐⭐⭐.5 (4.5)

“I heard something once I tried to live by: A ship is safe in the harbor, but that’s not what ships are made for.” - Allison Ashley

The Roommate Pact is a spin-off book from Allison Ashley’s other book, Would You Rather? I didn’t know this until after I read this one so I will be reading Would You Rather next.

This book has so many tropes that I enjoy such as close proximately and friends to friends with benefits to lovers. Even though it was pretty predictable how it was going to end, it was a great journey that I enjoyed.

The best part of this book was definitely the chemistry between the two main characters, Clare and Graham. Their playful banter and conversations had the perfect blend of good friends with a bit of romance as well. They both felt like real people with flaws and strengths. Both characters were impacted by their pasts which definitely affects their relationships.

Overall, I loved this book. It kept me wanting to read more to see how Clare and Graham's relationship would develop and change. The Roommate Pact is filled with humor, heart, and just a bit of spice. This is a great book for any romance fans!

Thank you MIRA Books and Netgalley for my ARC for an honest review!

After really enjoying Would You Rather, I knew I would be reading more from Allison Ashley. I also enjoyed getting to know Graham and Claire in that book so I was interested in where their story would lead. I’ll be honest and say that a “friends with benefits” plot isn’t usually my cup of tea because of my personal beliefs around intimacy but this book kind of proved my point as to why that’s not a good idea - one or both will fall for each other because you can’t have that level of vulnerability without it affecting major emotions.

I loved Graham and Claire, as individual characters but also together. They are in your face at times and have the best tension and banter. They both had really great emotional growth in this book and I loved the way the author had Graham begin to open up to his feelings. There were also some really funny moments involving Graham’s dog Gertrude that made me laugh out loud. The arc for her and Claire might be my favorite part of this book.

I appreciate the level of spice that Allison adds to her stories. I think she is filling a niche for readers that want a lot of tension with a little bit of spice but closing the curtain before we get too much detail.

This one had a little more language than I prefer in my books but that was kind of par for the course with these characters. It wasn’t excessive and didn’t take away any enjoyment in the story for me.

The third act wasn’t my favorite and got a little frustrating for me but this was otherwise an enjoyable read.

I received an advanced copy of this book from NetGalley. Opinions in this review are my own.

Content Notes: Fade to black/closed door romance, rock climbing accident, death of a parent, bullying, some strong language

I had really high expectations going into this book because I loved book 1 so much! Unfortunately I did not enjoy this one as much. I did like the roommates/friends-to-lovers trope and overall it was a good book. I just didn’t connect with the characters and had a hard time staying interested. My favorite part was when they went to visit the MMCs family. If you enjoy roommates-to-lovers and thrill seeking MMCs the I definitely recommend this book!

Allison Ashley has this way of writing stories that tugs at your heart, makes you laugh, makes you cry, and makes you swoon.

Claire & Graham are close friends and roommates. They made a marriage pact which turned into a friends with benefit pact - if they were not married by 40, they would start hooking up. Then Graham gets into a serious accident and suddenly everything has changed between them. Claire becomes his home nurse which quickly turns into more…

I adored the chemistry between Claire and Graham. I love their banter and Graham’s emails?? SWOOOOOOOOOOOON 😭😭😭😭

I have nothing bad to say about this book - just that I wish I could read it again for the first time because it was that good.

Thank you to NetGalley and
Harlequin for the ARC in exchange for my honest review!

Read this while i was on a weekend away in a cabin and the vibes were perfect!
Super cute,fast paced and easy to get through. Friends to lovers/roommates to lovers!!!!
What started as a silly marriage pact between roommates, soon turns serious when Graham has an accident and Claire has to take care of him and come to terms with how she feels and if she’s okay with his lifestyle that puts him in almost constant danger and in turn puts her in a state of constant worry.
Graham is a firefighter and overall outdoorsy person,climbing,hiking,camping; you name it he does it. He decided a long time ago marriage and long term relationships weren’t for him after having his heart crushed.
Claires father had a dangerous job that ultimately took his life. She decided she would never put herself in the position her mother was in. Staying at home worrying if her spouse would return after a day at work.
Now they both have to decide if they’d rather sacrifice how they feel for one another or their fears of losing someone they love.

Thank you NetGalley and Allison Ashley for this book.

This is such a cute romcom! I enjoyed it. The Roommate Pact is a fun story of Graham and Claire develop their friendship into a romantic relationship. Their chemistry is good and you can’t help but to root for them. They characters are great. Fast easy read for me. I recommend

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️/5

THIS BOOK WAS SOOOOO GOOD! So good!
This is rom-com perfection!!! I finished it in one day and do not regret ignoring my family all day to finish reading this!

Claire, an ER nurse is roommates and good friends with Graham, a firefighter with a love for adventure. When he fall and hurts himself, Claire is there by his side. They start to develop feelings for each other, but he is not the relationship type, and she has always promised herself that she will be with someone who doesn’t have a dangerous job/lifestyle.

Claire and Graham are such lovable characters!! I fell in love with them instantly. They had great chemistry, sexual tension, and witty banter! Also, let’s not forget the adorable dog, Gertie, whose relationship with Claire was hilarious!

This book had me laughing and crying. It was such an incredibly heartwarming book. I usually like books with a bit of spice, but this book was so darn cute that it didn’t matter one bit!! This was the absolute sweetest book and I can’t praise it enough!!! I can’t wait to read more from Allison Ashley!


📘: The Roommate Pact by Allison Ashley
🗓️: August 1, 2023

Thank you to NetGalley, Allison Ashley, and Harlequin Trade Publishing, for this ARC!

I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

*Reviewed on NetGalley and Goodreads.

I was not prepared at all for how much I would love this! I read almost the entire book in one afternoon. I love that the characters were a little older (in their 30’s). Claire is a nurse and Graham is a firefighter. Their banter was wonderful and I loved their chemistry. I was totally hooked from the first page. My only complaint is that they kept talking and leading up to them having sex then would gloss right over it with no details, I needed some spice 🌶️ I would say this was 4.5 stars but could have easily been 5 if I got some details 🤣