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The Roughest Draft

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The Roughest Draft

By: Emily Wibberley, Austin Siegemund-Broka
Narrated by: Dan Bittner, Imani Jade Powers
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About this listen

 One of...
Amazon's Best Romances of January
Popsugar's Best New Romances of 2022
Cosmopolitan's Best Romance Novels of 2022
Buzzfeed, GMA.com, Shondaland, and Bustle's Best of January
Oprah Daily’s Most Anticipated Romances of 2022
E! News' Books to Add To Your Reading List in January
Bookbub's Most Anticipated Romances of Winter
The Nerd Daily’s Swoonworthy 2022 Releases

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 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 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. Contemporary Women's Fiction
All stars
Most relevant
An intelligent approach to the genre. I wasn't crushing on the male lead, as often occurs but invested in the way the 2 MCs melded together.

Refreshing

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Although the two timelines were crafted together beautifully, unfortunately I found that the well-written back-and-forth of the characters was not distracting enough from its lack of plot.
I don’t always mind a predictable storyline, however it seemed so long to get to the next plot development I was bored before it got there. A lot of this books substance is musings on the way the characters felt - describing an emotion from 5 or 6 different angles. I appreciated the main characters’ integrity, but otherwise found them a bit dull.

This book may be a winner for many people though, it ticks boxes of pining, describes heartbreak and love well, and is packed with glances full of meaning and longing etc etc...

Emotive, but lacking plot

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I wanted to love this book but it was never able to hold my interest. I stopped and restarted this book three times and finally decided to stick it out as l just wanted to get it over and finished but right till the end l just couldn’t get hooked or invested. It was an ok storyline but just so incredibly slow burn and sadly that coupled with nothing major happening throughout just didn’t hold my interest, I actually didn’t care how it ended but forced myself to push through just to get it finished. Two stars from me 🥴

Just too slow burn for me!

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Talked a lot about good prose but the writers voice never came through and was lost. I felt like we were reading a mediocre story that was echoing a genuinely interesting story and the only reason I finished was because they did the stupid flashback/reveal in climax across two timelines thing, but by the time you got there, you knew exactly what was going to happen so it just seemed like a more convoluted way of presenting an easy narrative. It's difficult to write protagonists who are writing prodigies and not have that reflect how your readers interpret the book. I think a more humble approach would have made the main characters more likeable and let some of the clunkiness go unnoticed but when you're having a discussion about how well the characters can write exceptional and considered prose, it's hard to ignore all the times where the metaphors didn't enhance their work or give it depth, and just made the tone sound pseudophilosophical and pretentious.

Kind of pretentious

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