Emily Wibberley and Austin Siegemund-Broka met and fell in love in high school. Austin went on to graduate from Harvard, while Emily graduated from Princeton. Together, they are the authors of several novels about romance for teens and adults. Now married, they live in Los Angeles, where they continue to take daily inspiration from there own love story. You can find them at EmilyAndAustinWrite.com.
Three years ago, Katrina Freeling and Nathan Van Huysen were the brightest literary stars on the horizon, their cowritten book 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 a 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 takes a few rough drafts before they get it right.
What struck me while reading was the clear authenticity of the story line. While I do talk a bit about inspiration in the next paragraph, I was struck by how the writing relationship with Katrina and Nathan was portrayed organically, and more believable than any other romance I've read this year. This certainly comes from the authors' own experiences with cowriting and falling in love—something about knowing that everything I was reading was maybe possibly authentically felt by the authors themselves made the reading experience of The Roughest Draft that much more special and real as a reader. I was also tied to the conversations regarding the connection between fiction and truth. A lot of book lovers love books because it helps them escape their reality, or it helps them understand it—most of the time, it's a combination of the two. So the authors' ability to blend the reality of their lives with the fiction of their characters to tell such a beautiful and authentic story really resonated with me.
This book is so meta! Maybe that's a little bit of an understatement. This novel is written by two cowriters (who are married in love) about two cowriters who are on their journey to love. The novel the fictional cowriters are working on uses a plot structure that is similar to the one employed by the real-life cowriters to tell the fictional cowriters' story. Top this all off with countless metaphors on the human experience using books/pages/drafts/other writerly phrases, and you have one of the most meta contemporary romance novels yet. What makes this even better is the clear (at least to me) inspiration of this novel: Emily Henry. Who doesn't love her? Maybe it's because I'm such a big fan of Beach Read and People We Meet on Vacation, but I just couldn't help but find parallels between Henry's stories and The Roughest Draft. The two writers cohabiting (BR), the plot structure where we're working towards uncovering the even that kept the two characters apart (PWMOV), the beach setting (BR)? The similarities don't end there. Being able to recognize how Wibberley and Siegemund-Broka got their inspiration (their own experience and Henry's books) was such a fun thing to track. Maybe they've never read Henry's books, or maybe they have, but it just goes to show how small a world the one of book publishing is, and just makes The Roughest Draft all the more special to the real book lovers out there.
One of the most wonderful aspects of the novel is the way the love and romance are clear throughout the writing. As Emily Wibberley wrote in her Instagram caption for pub day of this book, "Co-writing with someone you love is a unique experience ... If reading [TRD] feels like falling in love, that's because with every novel, we do a little more." This rings incredibly true, especially when we're getting nearer to the end of the novel, and Katrina and Nathan are coming closer and closer together, and to discovering the power of overcoming their fears. I'm not entirely sure how to describe it; it's just very, very clear that there is a lot of love written into the novel, and I just know that it's a product of the cowriters' affection for one another, because it's unlike any sort of feeling I've read in a contemporary romance novel before. However, while the love and romance clearly shine through in this story, my only note would be that some of the writing felt elitist—now, I wasn't sure if this was a product of the characterization of the characters, or just due to the Ivy League background of the authors themselves, but I found myself tripping over words I have never seen in contemporary romance novels before. While not necessarily a bad thing, it did take me out of the novel at some points, and is something I hope the writers can grow from, or make more intentional, in the next adult contemporary romance novel they write.
I started my journey into contemporary romance novels because they were lighter reads than fantasy, but they also provided just enough complexity so that it wasn't all romance, all the time. Recently, I've noticed a trend of the genre becoming even more complex, without losing any of that giddy romance feeling. What I mean by that is, the people portrayed in these novels are becoming more complicated, and the genre is becoming so much richer with this representation. In The Roughest Draft, we see someone who is engaged to someone else coming to terms with who she is; someone who is married to someone else reconciling with emotional cheating and trying to find the right way out of the situation; and someone who is afraid of happiness, and anxious and depressed because of it. These feelings and these situations are so complicated, but they are so human, and real in their humanness. Because Nathan and Katrina are in such complicated positions personally and professionally, we are able to understand their motivations and decisions, and how those positions affect their treatment of each other. This makes the novel ten times more interesting, because it really keeps us guessing at how the happily ever after ending is going to come about. While the HEA is a guarantee, it is always about the journey, and the more complicated the characters, the more enjoyable that journey is going to be.
I will be anxiously awaiting the announcement of their next adult contemporary romance novel. Until then, we can find Emily and Austin at EmilyAndAustinWrite.com.
*This review can also be found on my Goodreads page*
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