Bubbling up with Helena

• Title: The Rom-Commers
• Author: Katherine Center
• Publisher: St. Martin’s Press
• Release Date: 6/11/24
• Genre: Romance
• Age Range: Adult
• Rating: ★★★★
• Publisher’s Summary: She’s rewriting his love story. But can she rewrite her own? 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?

The title of The Rom-Commers immediately captured my interest. I am a romcom girlie through and through – both in terms of books and movies. I’ve read several of Katherine Center’s other books lately, and this one is my favorite.

Emma initially seems to be a totally selfless person. She puts her own life and career completely on hold in order to take over her father’s care. I appreciated that even though Emma has made all of these sacrifices, she is not presented as perfect. She can be impatient and frustrated, just like the rest of us.

I found Charlie Yates a very likable and compelling character. He is rich and famous and initially comes off as aloof and standoffish. However, it is clear pretty quickly that he is not someone who rests on his laurels and is constantly name dropping all of the famous people he works with. Starting with being willing to accept help on his screen play, Charlie goes through quite a journey of growth over the course of this novel that I loved.

As someone with three siblings, I love when a romance novel heavily features a sibling relationship. Emma and Sylvie, her younger sister, have a close relationship, but it is full of a lot of baggage. Emma worries Sylvie won’t do a good enough job taking care of their sick father, and Sylvie resents Emma for being the reason their family went on the camping trip that led to their mother’s death. Despite all of this trauma, it is clear that Emma and Sylvie love each other deeply and just want each other to be happy.

I love when authors bring characters from their other books into their novels. I read The Bodyguard last year. The protagonist of that novel, the famous actor Jack Stapleton, shows up in The Rom-Commers. I immediately recognized his name and was thrilled he made an appearance. It doesnt feel forced at all, but it is a nice little Easter egg for those of us who have read Center’s other work.

There is something beautiful about reading a story about two broken people coming togther and healing one another, and The Rom-Commers is just that. I hope this book gets made into a movie because it would be the perfect romcom.