Emma Wheeler desperately longs to be a screenwriter. She’s spent her life studying, obsessing over, and writing romantic comedies—good ones! That win contests! But she’s also been the sole caretaker for her kind-hearted dad, who needs full-time care. Now, when she gets a chance to re-write a script for famous screenwriter Charlie Yates—The Charlie Yates! Her personal writing god!—it’s a break too big to pass up.
Emma’s younger sister steps in for caretaking duties, and Emma moves to L.A. for six weeks for the writing gig of a lifetime. But what is it they say? Don’t meet your heroes? Charlie Yates doesn’t want to write with anyone—much less “a failed, nobody screenwriter.” Worse, the romantic comedy he’s written is so terrible it might actually bring on the apocalypse. Plus! He doesn’t even care about the script—it’s just a means to get a different one green-lit. Oh, and he thinks love is an emotional Ponzi scheme.
But Emma’s not going down without a fight. She will stand up for herself, and for rom-coms, and for love itself. She will convince him that love stories matter—even if she has to kiss him senseless to do it. But . . . what if that kiss is accidentally amazing? What if real life turns out to be so much . . . more real than fiction? What if the love story they’re writing breaks all Emma’s rules—and comes true?
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Contemporary romantic fiction and uplifting stories offer readers a blend of emotional depth and humor in novels such as Happiness for Beginners and The Bodyguard. Katherine Center is an American author who has written numerous bestselling books centered on overcoming life's unexpected setbacks and finding resilience.
With popular titles including Hello Stranger and The Rom-Commers, her work explores personal healing, love, and growth through relatable human struggles.
Born Katherine Sherar Pannill on March 4, 1972, in Houston, Texas, she grew up in the Afton Oaks neighborhood. Her passion for writing began in sixth grade, when she wrote a novel-length fan fiction story about Duran Duran. She attended St. John's School in Houston and went on to earn her Bachelor of Arts from Vassar College, where she won the Vassar College Fiction Prize. She later completed her Master of Arts in fiction at the University of Houston, where she served as co-editor of the literary fiction magazine Gulf Coast. Her graduate thesis, a short story collection titled Peepshow, was recognized as a finalist for the Mary McCarthy Prize in Short Fiction.
Before publishing her novels, Center worked as a teacher and freelance writer. She published her debut novel The Bright Side of Disaster and subsequently authored Everyone Is Beautiful, How to Walk Away, Things You Save in a Fire, and What You Wish For. Her reach expanded through screen adaptations; the feature film adaptation of The Lost Husband reached number one on Netflix in 2020, while the film adaptation of Happiness for Beginners, starring Ellie Kemper and Luke Grimes, reached the Netflix Global Top Ten in 81 countries.
Center's writing blends humor with bittersweet emotion, exploring how characters regain their footing after experiencing unexpected life disruptions, injury, or loss. Her stories often feature central relationships that develop alongside personal recovery, balancing romantic tropes with familial bonds and emotional healing to deliver hopeful endings.
