2017 is the year of Christina Lauren, and Roomies is another incredible addition to their catalog!
About ‘Roomies’ by Christina Lauren:
Marriages of convenience are so…inconvenient.
Rescued by Calvin McLoughlin from a would-be subway attacker, Holland Bakker pays the brilliant musician back by pulling some of her errand-girl strings and getting him an audition with a big-time musical director. When the tryout goes better than even Holland could have imagined, Calvin is set for a great entry into Broadway—until he admits his student visa has expired and he’s in the country illegally.
Holland impulsively offers to wed the Irishman to keep him in New York, her growing infatuation a secret only to him. As their relationship evolves from awkward roommates to besotted lovers, Calvin becomes the darling of Broadway. In the middle of the theatrics and the acting-not-acting, what will it take for Holland and Calvin to realize that they both stopped pretending a long time ago?
‘Roomies’ by Christina Lauren review:
Christina Lauren have always been able to write novels that just blow me away, but this year they seemed to have cranked their talent up a notch and keep outdoing themselves. Roomies is a little sexier than some of their previous novels this year, but still has a strong heroine which I just fell in love with.
Holland is my favorite kind of heroine, she’s both strong and struggling which makes her all the more relatable. She’s still trying to figure things out for herself when she develops a crush on Calvin and isn’t expecting anything to actually happen with him.
“Desperate to contribute something, my emotional brain immediately sprints to shelter: I could be saving Robert! My logical brain holds up a hand: Don’t get ahead of yourself, Holland.”
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Going to see Calvin preform at the subway station becomes a habit for her when Holland develops a crush on his music as well as his hotness. So when an opportunity pops up at the musical that Holland works for, she immediately thinks of Calvin. What Holland doesn’t know is that Calvin is in the country illegally, so even though he blows his audition out of the park he can’t accept the job.
In a bit of craziness, Holland decides to offer to wed Calvin so he can get a visa and work for her uncle on the musical. This way, she gets to do something for her uncle and Calvin, but also a little bit for herself because it means getting to know Calvin better.
“The other bit of awareness is that if Calvin says yes…we’ll be married. Husband and wife. We’ll live together…proximity, nakedness, my fantasies about him expanding into something barely manageable.”
Through her journey with Calvin, Holland begins to realize just how stuck in a rut she is. All around her the creative geniuses seem to be flourishing while she’s having a hard time getting going on her writing. Her whole life she’s wanted to be a writer, and yet she spends more time helping those around her than working on anything of her own.
Roomies perfectly lays out those awkward years between college and feeling like a true adult. Holland and Calvin both have some growing up to do before they can really dive into their relationship and work things out. There are plenty of bumps and bruises along the way for them, but their chemistry in and out of the theater is impossible for them to deny.
“But the next day, onstage during rehearsal, he meets my gaze just as he playing this section, and the emphasis of the notes, the astonishing beauty of them, makes tears spring immediately to my eyes. I was right, and this is how he tells me.”
Once I picked up the novel, I couldn’t put it down and read it in one sitting – only stopping to eat some dinner. The novel somewhat reminds me of the Wild Seasons series (Holland is like a mix between Mia and Harlow) but with a more mature feel, a different setting and circumstances.
Roomies both felt like going home to some familiar writing from Christina Lauren but with the excitement of something new from my favorite must read authors. For readers not familiar with these two, this is a great chance to see what all the buzz is about this author duo!
Roomies by Christina Lauren will be released on December 5! Pre-order now from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, or iBooks. And don’t forget to add it to your Goodreads!
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