The Roommate by Rosie Danan

Title: The Roommate (Shameless #1)

Author: Rosie Danan

Publisher: Berkley 2020

Genre: Romance

Pages: 325

Rating: 4/5 stars

Reading Challenges: Romanceopoly - Starstruck Sweets (Celebrity); Cover Love - Need of a redesign

Where I Got It: Library

Spice Rating: 5

The Wheatons are infamous among the east coast elite for their lack of impulse control, except for their daughter Clara. She’s the consummate socialite: over-achieving, well-mannered, predictable. But every Wheaton has their weakness. When Clara’s childhood crush invites her to move cross-country, the offer is too tempting to resist. Unfortunately, it’s also too good to be true.

After a bait-and-switch, Clara finds herself sharing a lease with a charming stranger. Josh might be a bit too perceptive—not to mention handsome—for comfort, but there’s a good chance he and Clara could have survived sharing a summer sublet if she hadn’t looked him up on the Internet...
 
Once she learns how Josh has made a name for himself, Clara realizes living with him might make her the Wheaton’s most scandalous story yet. His professional prowess inspires her to take tackling the stigma against female desire into her own hands. They may not agree on much, but Josh and Clara both believe women deserve better sex. What they decide to do about it will change both of their lives, and if they’re lucky, they’ll help everyone else get lucky too.

Overall a cute romcom style romance featuring some great conversations about sex work. The set-up/meet cute is very contrived and silly, but once I got over that, I really fell into he story and the characters. Josh is a great male lead who really stays true to himself the entire story. I loved seeing Clara grow and change throughout the book. The steamy scenes were definitely steamy and fun. The third act break-up/conflict felt believable and sufficiently full of drama without being too cliched. I also loved seeing a male lead actually make amends for his actions. The ending was rushed and a bit too cliched for my tastes keeping the book from being a 5 star book. But in the end, I still really enjoyed this one.

Shameless

• #1 The Roommate

• #2 The Intimacy Experiment

Next up on the TBR pile:

Do Your Worst by Rosie Danan

Title: Do Your Worst

Author: Rosie Danan

Publisher: Berkley 2023

Genre: Romance

Pages: 317

Rating: 4/5 stars

Reading Challenges: She Reads Romance - January (You Didn’t Get to in 2023); Library Love

Spice Meter: 5

Riley Rhodes finally has the chance to turn her family’s knack for the supernatural into a legitimate business when she’s hired to break the curse on an infamous Scottish castle. Used to working alone in her alienating occupation, she's pleasantly surprised to meet a handsome stranger upon arrival—until he tries to get her fired.

Fresh off a professional scandal, Clark Edgeware can’t allow a self-proclaimed “curse breaker” to threaten his last chance for redemption. After he fails to get Riley kicked off his survey site, he vows to avoid her. Unfortunately for him, she vows to get even.

Riley expects the curse to do her dirty work by driving Clark away, but instead, they keep finding themselves in close proximity. Too close. Turns out, the only thing they do better than fight is fool around. If they’re not careful, by the end of all this, more than the castle will end up in ruins.

Overall a cute supernaturally tinged romance featuring two opposite people. I really do love a good enemies to lovers trope and this one definitely fit the bill. Riley can be a be secretive and naive at times, but she’s a good character to root for. The scenes without Clark in them were just not as good as the ones with him in it. We needed the banter and the barbs for this story to really work and keep me engaged. There are some very spicy scenes in this one including a scene in a library. I would never desecrate a library like they do, but hey, it’s a book. The appearance of Clark’s father was very cringe-worthy, but added that extra obstacle that the story needed. Definitely a fun romp.

Next up on the TBR pile: