AAfter writing stories of self-discovery, resilience, and personal growth, novelist Katherine Center believes that at the end of the day, all her readers need is love. The Houston-based author’s latest book is called The Rom-Commers is a passionate love letter to the joys and complexities of romance.
“Romance novels have something uniquely nourishing and good for us – not just for us as individuals, but for society,” says Center Paper City“The way these stories work uplifts all of us in a way that I think the world really needs today.”
center has written more than 10 books and is steadily gaining readers with her “bittersweet comedies,” as she calls them. They are stories of complex female characters who embark on a journey of self-discovery and fall in love at the same time. Two of her more introspective novels, Luck for beginners (for Netflix) And The Lost Husband (on VOD), were recently made into a film.
“I was the opposite of an overnight sensation. I very slowly found the people who would like what I do,” says Center.
Katherine Center’s COVID cure for quarantined hearts
Center, a longtime champion of the romance genre, began focusing on the category in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic. After months of lockdowns and quarantines, Center’s life went from hopeless romantic to just plain hopeless. She began to fear the end of human civilization.
To cheer herself and her fans, who were faced with dangerous insecurities, Center wrote her New York Times preferablysale novel The BodyGuardShe describes it as “the sweetest, most beautiful, most romantic rom-com.”
“That was my first book that was marketed as a romance novel,” she says. “Ever since that happened, I’ve wondered what’s wrong with our culture and why we’re so mean to romance novels. They are no nerdier than wizards in the forest and no dumber than wars in the stars.”
Rather than spending her free time reading novels with scary twists, Center prefers the predictability and familiarity of the romance genre. In particular, Center appreciates the positive social behaviors inherent in the genre. Characters often focus on self-improvement and improving their communication skills in order to eventually find each other. These behaviors encourage readers to act accordingly.
Center says that her ideal love story, above all, makes readers feel like they are the ones falling in love.
“As a reader, what interests me most is the longing, the desire, the lust to bring these two people together,” notes Center. “I want that vicarious experience of falling in love.”
The Rom-Commers’ Comedy and Chemistry
The Rom-Commers follows the brave, neurotic heroine Emma Wheeler. Although she loves romantic comedies, Emma has no time for a relationship. She cares for her father, who suffers from a traumatic brain injury and Meniere’s disease. While she frets about her father’s sodium consumption, she works part-time as an entertainment critic and film professor in Houston.
One day, her ex-boyfriend from high school calls and offers her a job: the chance to rewrite a script for the cult film. It happened one night. She would also be working with her favorite screenwriter, Charlie Yates. She immediately flies to Los Angeles to help Charlie bring the script for the romantic comedy he massacred to life.
But something stands in the way of Emma’s big Hollywood dreams. Charlie doesn’t want her help. When they arrive at his villa in Malibu, Charlie almost sends Emma away, but then reluctantly agrees to work on the script together and become roommates.
As the two argue, discuss and joke about the script, they learn to respect each other’s lines and quickly become friends. From cooking together to line dancing, Emma and Charlie’s platonic adventures are brimming with chemistry. Readers will love reading the book and wanting to shake these two crazy characters because they so often refuse to confess their love to each other.
“It’s an uplifting, profound story about caring for one another and becoming the best versions of ourselves despite everything,” says Center.
