Such a fun book! Enemies to lovers/close proximity novel. I loved Emma and Charlie and was cheering them on from the start. There are also great secondary characters. Flawed characters, some parts are heavy but others will have you laughing. All around a good read. 5 stars.

Emma was a promising screenwriter when her father was badly injured in a rock-climbing accident and she became his primary caregiver. Years later, her ex-boyfriend, a screenwriting agent, offers her a once-in-1000-lifetimes opportunity to co-write a rom-com with her screenwriting idol and Hollywood crush, Charlie Yates. Yates writes award-winning films in every genre EXCEPT romantic comedies. Though their first meeting doesn’t go as planned—it turns out he doesn’t actually want to write with anyone else, let alone someone without a resume—he finds her passion for the genre intriguing. As the genre begins to win him over, so does Emma’s charm.

I really liked Emma and her arc of trying to invest in herself and her professional success after deferring her dreams for years. The book is told in the first person, and Emma is a fun narrator to hang out with. While she’s generally a sunshine character, I enjoyed seeing how she navigated the more challenging aspects of her life.

On the other hand, Charlie is a jerk when he first meets Emma. I totally understand his frustration: he did not invite this woman to his house!!! However, I can’t get on board with the way he demeans Emma. Even after he invites her to stay, he continues to be condescending. Charlie’s mood swings took me out of the romance and made it harder to root for them.

Thanks to @stmartinspress and @netgalley for the opportunity to read and review the Digital ARC of THE ROM-COMMERS.

This is my second title from the author. I loved <i>Hello Stranger</i> and this one has similar vibes with the quirky main character. Definitely read this one if you liked that one and vice versa.

Things I liked: Emma's first person perspective was fun to read. I liked how it felt like she was recounting everything to the reader. I enjoyed the behind-the-scenes of how a writer might work. The banter with Charlie felt natural and I loved how they fit into each other's lives. Emma's family brought depth to the story too.

Things I didn't like: It felt too similar to the main character of her previous book. I didn't enjoy how some conflicts occurred and were resolved.

I will forgive most of the negatives though, because this book got me out of my reading rut and I devoured it surprisingly quickly. 3.5-4 stars rounded up.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for the advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.

I have to admit that I'm not normally a huge fan of Katherine Center's books. I've read quite a few based on the recommendations of friends, but they never quite hit right for me. However, I really enjoyed <i>The Rom-Commers</i>. The characters felt more nuanced than others of hers, and there was a good tension between them. I still was frustrated that another woman is always the bad guy in her books, but it wasn't as obnoxious as it was in other books (although I still wish she'd leave that tired trope behind).

Thanks, NetGalley, for the ARC of this book.

The Rom-Commers by Katherine Center was such a great read! Katherine Center has become an automatic preorder when she releases a new book. I appreciate Katherine’s writing style. The characters are relatable and the plot is solid.

I fell in love with the main characters Emma and Charlie. I love how their relationship develops as they work together to rewrite Charlie’s screenplay. Charlie’s need to protect himself from having a close relationship with Emma was heart breaking.

Multiple times while reading I laughed out loud. I truly enjoyed this novel.

Many thanks to NetGalley, St Martins Press, and Katherine Center for providing me with a digital copy in exchange for my honest review. It truly was my pleasure to have read it and I would recommend this book to all lovers of Rom-Com novels. Great read!!

Thank you so much netgalley and the publisher for this arc.

Katherine Center is an auto buy author for me and I adore her.

This was sooooo good! It made me laugh,swoon, and the ending had me sobbing.

A romantic comedy about writing a script for a romantic comedy - so fun! Emma wants to be a screenwriter but as full-time caretaker for her dad she just can’t take the opportunities life throws her way. Until she gets the offer of a lifetime to write a rom com with her idol, Charlie Yates. Charlie is cranky and cynical and couldn't care less about this script, but then Emma teaches him about love and everything changes. Such a fun, cute read! Thank you Netgalley and St. Martin’s Press for the egalley in exchange for my honest review.

What happens when two solitary but gifted screenwriters are prodded (coerced?) into collaborating over a rom-com film script when one of the writers is seemingly allergic to romance, not to mention collaboration? A firm defense of the requisite elements of the romance genre, for sure. A grumpy/sunshine pairing that vigorously defends romance for all the wonderful reasons it remains so popular in entertainment. And a very believable case made for finding not just a romantic partner but a writing partner in life too. This charming rom-com is filled with plenty of emotional and engaging moments, and I found it hard to put down once I started.

Both characters, Emma and Charlie, have well-developed backstories that earn readers' sympathies right from the start of the book. Unlike some books that take their time pulling you in, this one is captivating from page one. Emma is the far more transparent of the two, largely since this is her first-person account, and once she shares the sadness of losing her mother as a child, and the emotional toil of caring for her disabled father for over a decade, the brittleness of her rigid adherence to routines and order make a whole lot of sense. Charlie is much more opaque, for better or worse, and so we interpret him through Emma's perception of him, which is often wrong. Little signs do illuminate Charlie's motivations and feelings, but his character is subtle, sometimes to a fault, and I could feel myself getting frustrated at times with his inability to share his thoughts. On the other hand, this is one romance where I sympathized with the heroine's feelings of confusion about Charlie as a romantic partner. No need to fear though; Charlie is quite wonderful as a romantic partner, even if he disowns that role for most of the book

I completely enjoyed the Los Angeles setting where Charlie thrives as a highly successful and important screenwriter. The author handles the disparity between Charlie's status and Emma's struggling artist story really well especially since Emma, despite her star worshipping of Charlie as her favorite writer, is equally talented. We know this more from Charlie's admiration of her intellectual prowess than from Emma's pragmatic focus on surviving her life rather than embracing it.

I am always drawn to books where the writerly or bookish life is front and center, and though it is here in the plot, I did want more at times about how both characters build their relationship through their work together. We are told they do, but I struggled at times to feel that or grasp more fully how they collaborated in ways that helped them to fall in love. Along those lines, their final product left me with questions. I didn't have a clear enough sense of it and why it would be a smashing success. Despite being a romance reader, I rarely enjoy rom-coms on the screen, and so I wanted to know more about why this one succeeds. I also wasn't sure how I felt about the secrets withheld. I get the why of it, but I still wondered if honesty could have been more refreshing.

Still, I flew through this one and highly recommend it.

I loved both of our main characters. The FMC is so positive that she made me rethink my outlook on life lol. She was able to make a man who didn’t believe in love, well… fall in love!

Also loved the cameos from her previous works!!

Emma Wheeler desperately longs to be a screenwriter. She’s spent her life studying, obsessing over, and writing romantic comedies―good ones! That win contests! But she’s also been the sole caretaker for her kind-hearted dad, who needs full-time care. Now, when she gets a chance to re-write a script for famous screenwriter Charlie Yates―The Charlie Yates! Her personal writing god!―it’s a break too big to pass up.

Emma’s younger sister steps in for caretaking duties, and Emma moves to L.A. for six weeks for the writing gig of a lifetime. But what is it they say? Don’t meet your heroes? Charlie Yates doesn’t want to write with anyone―much less “a failed, nobody screenwriter.” Worse, the romantic comedy he’s written is so terrible it might actually bring on the apocalypse. Plus! He doesn’t even care about the script―it’s just a means to get a different one green-lit. Oh, and he thinks love is an emotional Ponzi scheme.

But Emma’s not going down without a fight. She will stand up for herself, and for rom-coms, and for love itself. She will convince him that love stories matter―even if she has to kiss him senseless to do it. But . . . what if that kiss is accidentally amazing? What if real life turns out to be so much . . . more real than fiction? What if the love story they’re writing breaks all Emma’s rules―and comes true?


KC writes incredibly lovable and relatable characters! I loved this so much! I love enemies to lovers so much and this did not disappoint!! I loved Emma and Charlie's banter they had together. I was worried at first but it ended up great.



I received an ARC of this book from NetGalley and the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

So I LOVE Katherine Center, but this book was sadly not my favorite. My biggest issue came from the fact that the characters, especially the MMC were completely unlikeable in the beginning. I am a character driven reader - I can forgive a multitude of sins if I'm invested in the characters. Unfortunately, this one made that very difficult. Both characters made some improvement as the story went on, but they'd lost me at that point.

2.5 stars

Story dragged on a little too long. Didn't really like the main characters (Charlie was a man-child and Emma came across like a whiny baby). Don't get me started on the number of times Emma repeated what someone said to her back in a question. Over and over and over (and over) again. (((“We’ve got Jack Stapleton attached to star.” “Jack Stapleton? Attached? To star?”))) Or the number of times she called him by his full government name (like, EVERY time). Why did Center rely so much on eavesdropping? I think it happened three times throughout the book and there are far better ways to communicate information in a storyline.

Now, I really enjoyed Things We Save in a Fire and How to Walk Away but this one was such a far cry from those two books that I thought it was written by a different author! I'm hoping her next book is as good as these older ones.

Thank you to the author, publisher, and NetGalley for the advanced copy of this book in exchange for my honest thoughts.

As the title suggests, this romantic comedy book is filled with romantic comedy tropes and discussions. Following Emma and Charlie, two writers matched together to re-write a romantic comedy screenplay, The Rom-Commers has Emma divulging the nuances of romance to the unbelieving and very reluctant Charlie.

While the premise to this sounds promising, the book falls flat due to the lackluster and somewhat annoying main characters. Our main female character, Emma, is constantly going back and forth between quitting and staying to finish the project. The first half of the book has her wanting to quit every other chapter, which becomes very tired and repetitive. Our main male character, Charlie, behaves very selfishly and routinely disappoints Emma in major ways, yet never seems to apologize or make things right between them. The chemistry is not palpable or evident at all throughout the novel. Suddenly they’re in love with each other? Not very believable, especially with minimal and frustrating buildup.

The two problematic main characters and their lack of chemistry is the real drawback for this book. However, there are plenty of redeeming qualities for this book outside of that. Emma’s strong sense of family and the community she has built back home with her friends and neighbors is heartwarming. The intertwined themes of happiness and sadness coinciding within great lives is a prominent theme that sticks with the reader. The appearances of Jack Stapleton (from Center’s other novel The Bodyguard) are always fun and endearing. The bit of suspense drummed up when Charlie receives a mystery phone call with bad news keeps the reader enthralled. Lastly, the ending of the book is happy and a real tear-jerker.

Overall, even with many redeeming qualities, the two main characters just aren’t likeable enough. Characters need to be flawed to be realistic, sure, but these two seemed to have no regard for the others’ feelings and it grew very tiresome. If you’re looking for a fun and cute rom-com story, I unfortunately would not recommend this book. I even believe that die-hard Katherine Center fans will be disappointed in this book as well.

Hmm this one wasn’t my favorite but I still found it mostly enjoyable. I can’t even exactly put my finger on what had me putting it down so often, but it was lacking just a smidgeon of something to really keep my squirrel-like attention span on point. Overall, was good and entertaining. Maybe I’ll give it another shot soon but for now it’s 3.5 stars.

Thank you Netgalley for the chance to read this book! Unfortunately, I did not enjoy it. The male protagonist was too egotistical for me to find him attractive. The romance also felt a bit forced to me. I wanted to like it but just didn't!

This book was enjoyable. Some parts of the middle felt slow or like they could’ve been avoided but overall I enjoyed watching the story progress. For fault of my own (going in mostly blind), I think I was expecting it to be lighter/more funny, so my brain had to scramble to get on board with the more serious issues. Had my expectations been different, I believe I would have clicked more quickly.

I always enjoy Katherine Center's characters and books, but this one wasn't my favorite. This had a great plot (loved seeing the writing process) and the chemistry between the main characters pretty good albeit mild, but the conflict at the end wasn't my favorite - without giving spoilers, the hypocrisy of the female main character was driving me insane and the lack of communication between the main characters was just kind of annoying.

3/5

I have thoroughly enjoyed Katherine Center’s previous books, so when this title was offered as an ARC I jumped at the chance. One I started reading it I couldn’t put it down! The characters quickly captured my interest and the storyline was easy to get into. I expected a light hearted summer read, but found this delightful story to offer so much more. One quote that really summed up the story, which resonates with my own self is, “Whatever story you tell yourself about your life, that’s the one that’ll be true.” YES! I hope that Katherine Center continues to write such delightfully fun and motivating books!

Katherine Center never disappoints me, and with the Rom-Commers she's done it again with raising the bar higher and higher. I adored how Emma grew as a character and how her relationship with Charlie grew from them as enemies to friends to to falling in love with one another. I know not everyone is a fan of tropes but I love 'em, especially when they're done right . Center also does heavy themes very well by discussing the grief of loosing a parent and helping a loved one with a diseases that changes their lives. I appreciate how she doesn't sugar coat these real emotions or situations that so many people deal with. As always, this was a phenomenal read with laughter, tears, and romance galore!

That you NetGalley for this ARC!

Couldn't put this down.

The story follows Emma and Charlie, two screenwriters in two different parts of their lives. Emma is stil lreeling after her family has gone through th runimaginable 10 years prior and has given up her whole career to be the sole caregiver for her father. Charlie is the IT writer of their generation, adjusting post divorce and illness, but has fallen into a writing slump. To top it all off, Charlie has to write a rom-com for the first time ever not even knowing if he believes in love anymore. In comes Emma. She is a walking rom-com, she's also Charlies biggest fan. Put the two together for 6 weeks to write an epic love story and well...you know the rest.

Although I found the story predictable, isn't that what makes a good rom-com? The slow burn/enemies to lovers trope is what kept me engaged as well as the orginal plot. I would have loved to see a little more chemistry between the two characters as you barely know Charlie cares about her until the end. All in all, I really liked it and would read more from Katherine Center.