Book Smart Kate

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by Katherine Center (June 11, 2024) – Many thanks to @katherinecenter @stmartinpress and @netgalley for the opportunity to read this book and provide a review. Is Katherine Center both one of my favorite romance authors and my accidental life coach? The answer is yes.

The last decade hasn’t gone how Emma Wheeler had planned. Still in Houston, instead of being a successful Hollywood screenwriter, she has spent the last decade raising her younger sister and providing round-the-clock care to her father. She’s still writing, and Logan, her high school ex, is her agent (he is in LA and kind of a big deal), although she’s never made him a dime. She has a vision board of all her favorite screenwriters and a mermaid romance script, but she is resigned that her dreams are behind her. That is until Logan presents her the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to help action movie superstar screenwriter Charlie Yeats rewrite his most recent script. It is a rom-com, and it is atrocious. The only catch is that she’d have to face fears of leaving her father, spend six weeks in LA, and tell her idol that his screenplay is trash. After a first meeting that doesn’t go as planned, Charlie is surprisingly open to feedback. Emma sets about the difficult task of convincing Charlie of the value of rom-coms and happily ever afters – and they may stumble into their own along the way.

In all her books, Center nails the ability to create charming, wholly engrossing romances with more layers and complexity and makes you think about life. She did it beautifully in Hello, Stranger, and again with this one. Emma and Charlie face real, hard things about life and get honest, difficult-to-hear truths from those they love. They are also so fun as these two, opposites in many ways, seek connection and care-taking but are dorky and awkward. It is a delightful, laugh-out-loud book with powerful messages about risk, hope, disappointment, tragedy, and happily ever afters.