The Roughest Draft by Emily Wibberley & Austin Siegemund-Broka
Publisher: Berkley Romance
Pub Date: 1/25/2022

Thank you to Berkley Romance for the free finished copy in exchange for my honest review.

Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

GoodReads Synopsis: 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.

Review: The Roughest Draft is the first book I’ve read from this husband and wife author duo. Apparently this book is their adult romance debut as they usually write YA romance. This romance contains former friends to enemies to lovers and forced proximity tropes. The authors touch upon gaslighting and emotional infidelity. Overall, my emotions were all over the place on what I thought about the book. I really loved the premise of the story. At first, I was intrigued by the story and liked the tension, but then it felt the tension was too dragged out by the time I was 50-100 pages in. I liked the alternating perspectives of Katrina and Nathan along with the past and present insight. I didn’t really care for either of their characters. Sometime their thought processes annoyed me at times, but I understood that was part of their characters. The one part I wish we could have read was glimpses of the actual story they were writing. In terms of the ending, I felt like the last 100 pages was a bit rushed. I wished that part was in the middle and more drawn out. Overall, I had a really difficult time rating this one. It was a 3.5 star rating for me, but I rounded to 4 stars on GoodReads.