🌿The Roughest Draft

by Emily Wibberley; Austin Siegemund-Broka

Pub Date: 1/25/22
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The author’s note mentioned this idea was sparked during the two author’s honeymoon. So interesting that they co-authored a book about two authors that fell in love while co-authoring since they fell in love as co-authors.

Katrina and Nathan met at a writing event when they were just starting out and got along so well they decided to co-author a book which was extremely successful. Nathan who was married to someone else suffered from rumors by the media, well they both did, of an affair. They would go on week-long writing retreats where they would get really close and rumors started. Three years later they are asked to complete their contract with one more book.

This book had a big build-up to the end and went from 3 years ago to when they wrote the book to now, also moving from Nathan to Katrina’s point of view. I enjoy going into the characters’ heads and feeling their emotions and hearing their motivations also moving from different timelines.  The process in writing and outlining a book all that entails interests me greatly. It is always fun to watch others’ process, I think that’s why I love to listen to author chats to listen to how they write their stories. Honestly they all do different combinations of things everyone has their own thing that works. Co-authoring is a whole different level of writing and it seems that if you find that one partner that compliments your writing and helps you towards a better story, you can’t write without them. The romance along the lines of forbidden romance since they couldn’t be or shouldn’t be interested in each other since he was married. Then 4 years later she was engaged and he was divorced. I really enjoyed how all the pieces came together and even ended up on the first time he saw her.

Q: Do you have any favorite co-authors?

Thank you berkleyromance and netgalley for the e-ARC for my honest and voluntary review.

Synopsis:

They were cowriting literary darlings until they hit a plot hole that turned their lives upside down.

Three years ago, Katrina Freeling and Nathan Van Huysen were the brightest literary stars on the horizon, their cowritten books topping bestseller lists. But on the heels of their greatest success, they ended their partnership on bad terms, for reasons neither would divulge to the public. They haven’t spoken since, and never planned to, except they have one final book due on contract.

Facing crossroads in their personal and professional lives, they’re forced to reunite. The last thing they ever thought they’d do again is hole up in the tiny Florida town where they wrote their previous book, trying to finish a new manuscript quickly and painlessly. Working through the reasons they’ve hated each other for the past three years isn’t easy, especially not while writing a romantic novel.

While passion and prose push them closer together in the Florida heat, Katrina and Nathan will learn that relationships, like writing, sometimes take a few rough drafts before they get it right.