Center’s latest, The Rom-Commers, surprised me, delightfully, because I was expecting a reading experience akin to my previous Center, Hello Stranger. Which I liked, but had reservations, (my review explains all) and yet, to this day, I think about it and like it better and better. On the other hand, The Rom-Commers captured mind and heart from page one; it made me laugh, it made me think, and it moved me.

Recounted solely from the heroine’s point of view, I was immediately immersed because I liked her so very much. In Emma Wheeler, Center created a funny, kind, whip-smart heroine; moreover, she is humble, self-effacing, and doesn’t take herself too seriously. We meet her in the midst of what, for most, would be a depressing circumstance: as house-bound care-giver to a disabled father. On the other hand, when she receives a call from her friend and sort-of manager Logan Scott (she’s his “pro bono” case in a sea of monied Hollywood clients) setting off the romance narrative’s action, she’s making dinner for her sister’s return from college and singing along with her dad to ABBA’s greatest hits. Even in difficult situations, Center’s Emma knows how to make people happy because she puts love about all else and why she writes rom-com scripts (and teaches English at a community college to help the family financially). Scott’s offer, to help salvage a rom-com script, comes with TWO provisos: one has Emma over the moon, to work with Charlie Yates (her script-writing idol of multiple-award fame) and ‘tother, well, to a devoted daughter and sister, is a problem: to travel to LA and work on the script in-person for the next six weeks.     

That’s a classic “forced proximity” romance that sees Emma and Charlie work on his truly execrable rom-com. Charlie writes all manner of stuff: horror, crime, thriller, but he doesn’t write rom-coms. (In this case, to get his mafia script made, he has to cough up a rom-com.) In effect, he writes everything Emma can’t stand, except he’s so good, she loves everything. Until she reads his script. And thus we have a forced proximity romance with opposites-attract – most delicious. Center’s execution? Chef’s kiss. 

How can Emma leave her dad? With her sister’s help, of course; Sylvie is finished college and can take over family-care duties. This is at the heart of Emma’s block, not writer’s, but aspirational: with her mother’s death on a family vacation and her father’s injury as a result of that same mountain-climbing family outing, Emma took it all on: care for father and younger sister, managing the household, cooking, cleaning, sheltering her sister and ensuring she finish college and making her father’s life as good as it can be. Emma meets Charlie Yates, grump, carrying her family burden and yet, she makes his life sunshiny. It’s important to emphasize Emma is no MPDG. She’s sharp and funny, smart and kind and she matches Charlie Yates quip for quip and she’s a darn good editor/ghost writer, which brings us to the matter’s crux.

Though it sounds like I’m stating the obvious, bear with me. Center has written a rom com, like a real one, like what a rom com actually is: romantic and really really funny. Every time I read a novel labelled a rom com, there’s not much com to the rom. But, thanks to Center’s banter-writing genius, I guffawed, snorted liquids, giggled (and I almost NEVER giggle), chuckled, and chortled. Because the matter’s crux is how beautifully meta Center’s rom-com is. Because in writing a rom com, she has her protagonists revise a “shitty” (Emma’s words, not mine) script into the incandescence of rom-com, like the one Charlie’s is modelled after, It Happened One Night. I would LOVE to quote some meta-dialogue here, but I only have an ARC and a warning from the publisher not to.

Suffice to say, Emma sets Charlie straight on what a rom com is and what it should do. And I’m going to sneak in a quotation because it perfectly describes what a romance should do as well: ” ‘The job of a rom-com,’ I said, ‘is to give you a simulated feeling of falling in love…should give you a swoony, hopeful, delicious, rising feeling of anticipation as you look forward to the moment when the two leads who are clearly mad for each other overcome all their obstacles, both internal and external, and get together.’ Now I gave Charlie the stink eye. ‘This is the first, most sacred rule of rom-coms,’ I said, in a tone like You know what you did.” To Center’s credit, though he’s a grump, Charlie’s a good guy; he listens to Emma, considers what she’s saying and admits its truth.

Center makes a romance out of a working partnership: two equals meeting over opposing ethoi, one learning from the other. And rom-coms aren’t the only thing Charlie learns: he learns to cook together, laugh together, and line dance together. One of the funniest scenes in rom-com is right here in this volume when Emma convinces Charlie to go line-dancing…and the instructor turns out to be an Italian hunk. The scene is doubly funny as Emma blithely ogles the instructor and Charlie do-si-do-s with the green monster.

I’ve said much about the com, but the rom is as good. Emma and Charlie have vulnerabilities: Emma, her family and the accident that she’s always felt guilt over; Charlie, my goodness, where to start, his marriage gone to hell in a handbasket and ending in divorce, his “don’t believe in love” sadness, his cancer diagnosis five years ago (thank goodness, this isn’t WF and it’s in the background, though it has a place in the HEA, in a good way, trust me). Center also understands the hidden core of the grump: the cynicism hides a soft heart, a hurt heart, and disappointment.

Without spoiling, another romance-writing Oscar on Center’s shelf is how unpredictable her narrative is. With most romance, my familiarity with the genre means I can anticipate next moves: doesn’t mean I don’t enjoy the romance, but I’m rarely surprised. I liked how Center moved the narrative, organically in keeping with how she established her protagonists’ personalities, to a magnificent dark moment, resolution, and HEA. That’s all I can say without ruining it, but I’ll say “read it”. It’s marvellous.

Katherine Center’s The Rom-Commers is published by St. Martin’s Press. It released on June 11th. I received an e-galley, from St. Martin’s Press, via Netgalley. The above is an AI-free expression of my opinion.