Audio book length: 11 hrs 21 mins
Rating: 4.5 stars
Emma Wheeler loves romantic comedies and has even won a contest with one of her screenplays. But with a father who needs around-the-clock care, and a sister to put through school, Emma's career dreams had to take a backseat. Now her agent has an amazing job opportunity for her, to work with the screenwriter she admires the most in the world, Charlie Yates. However, there is no way she can do the job remotely, she will need to stay in LA for six weeks. Emma initially tries to say no, scared that something will go wrong with her father if she leaves, and her sister has just landed a great internship.
Emma's little sister won't let her sacrifice even more for their family, though, so she resigns from the internship and spends days learning all of Emma's routines and rules for caretaking. Emma sets off for LA, only to discover that her agent may have fudged the truth a bit. It is true that Charlie Yates has written a script for a romantic comedy that is so awful it's staggering, but he has not asked for help improving it, and he certainly won't have some "nobody" come in to offer assistance. The romantic comedy script is a job he's doing so he can get one of his own dream projects funded, he thinks romance in general is overrated, and wants to send Emma packing.
Having gone to such trouble to actually get to his house (their mutual agent seems to think the best way to make this plan work is for them to live together in Charlie's massive mansion), she isn't going to give up without a fight. Emma will make the arrogant and stuck-up Charlie take back his disdain for the romantic comedy genre and after a brief trial run of working together, Charlie is forced to admit that they make a very good team, and they could manage to pull off this job without cutting any corners. Of course, the close proximity and all the time they spend together starts to develop into closeness of a different sort, but Charlie isn't one for relationships, and Emma has only a few weeks before she needs to get back home to her family. They might finish their screenplay, but how could they ever have a happy ending together?
This is my first Katherine Center novel, and I had very high expectations, since four different friends on Goodreads whose opinions I trust had rated it five stars. I listened to the audiobook for about 2/3 of the book, and Patti Murin, the narrator, does an excellent job. Even when Charlie's being a dismissive asshole, she made it possible to see his potential as a love interest. The final third I read in e-book (because I got impatient and had to see how things ended).
This is a romance with a grumpy-sunshine trope, where Charlie is a cynic who claims not to believe in love, while Emma is a die-hard romantic who wants happy endings for everyone, even when life has dealt her pretty much nothing but bad cards. Due to her mother's tragic death when she was a teenager, she not only has had to be the caretaker for her father, but she's also more or less been a surrogate parent for her younger sister. She's extremely focused on her father's health, and passing over responsibility for that to her sister is very difficult for her.
Charlie comes off as arrogant and unpleasant at first, but in his defense, he probably wasn't expecting his agent to turn up on his doorstep with a complete stranger. Charlie is very good at what he does, but needs to learn to accept help and how to collaborate with someone. He's an intensely private person, and has had health problems in the past that he's not really shared with anyone else. Letting Emma into his home, learning to work with her and later opening up to her and being vulnerable requires work on his part.
One of the reasons this book isn't a full five stars for me is the final act separation of the characters, which I thought dragged out too long, and also involved one of my least favourite tropes, the 'I must drive you away for your own good'. A thing I liked throughout the book, though, and especially towards the latter half, as they grow closer is Charlie doing his best to take care of Emma. While I find the previous trope I mentioned exasperating, the 'but who takes care of YOU?' trope is one of my favourites.
Having never read any Katherine Center books before, I was surprised to discover that this is a closed door romance, i.e. you don't actually get any sex scenes on the page. I don't mind a lack of spice if the rest of the book is satisfying, but I know that it can be a deal-breaker for others.
Judging a book by its cover: I don't entirely like the art style on this cover, but at least the two characters look like they are Emma and Charlie, so that's nice. I just think that if they decided to show the faces of the characters on the cover, the features should have been clearer. This just looks blurry and it frustrates me.
Crossposted on Cannonball Read,
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