Sticking Up For Romance Novels — Houston Author Katherine Center Dismisses the Idea That Rom-Coms Are Silly

After writing stories about self discovery, resilience and personal growth, novelist Katherine Center believes at the end of the day, all her readers need is love. The Houston-based author’s newest book called The Rom-Commers is an impassioned love letter to the joys and complexities of romance.

“There is something uniquely nourishing and good for us — not just us as individuals but for society — about romance novels,” Center tells PaperCity. “There’s something about the way those stories work that lifts us all up in a way I think the world really needs these days.”

Center has written more than 10 books, steadily gaining readership for what she calls her “bittersweet comedies.” They are tales of complex female characters undergoing journeys of self exploration while also falling in love. Two of her more introspective novels, Happiness for Beginners (for Netflix) and The Lost Husband (on VOD), recently got turned into movies.  

“I’ve been the opposite of an overnight sensation. I’ve very slowly found the people who were going to like the particular thing I do,” Center says.

Katherine Center’s COVID Cure for Quarantined Hearts

A longtime defender of the romance genre, Center began focusing on the category in the thick of the COVID-19 pandemic. After months of lockdowns and quarantining, Center shifted from being a hopeless romantic to just hopeless. She started to fear the end of human civilization.

In an effort to uplift both herself and fans who faced dangerous uncertainties, Center wrote her New York Times bestselling novel The BodyGuard. She describes it as “the sweetest, loveliest, most romantic rom-com.”

“That was my first book that was marketed as a romance,” she says.”Ever since that happened, I’ve been obsessing over what the deal is with our culture and why we’re so mean to romance novels. They’re no more nerdy than wizards in the forest, no more goofy than wars in the stars.”

Rather than spending her free time reading novels with anxiety-inducing twists and turns, Center prefers the predictability and familiarness of the romance genre. In particular, Center appreciates the positive social behaviors ingrained within the genre. Characters often focus on self improvement and bettering their communication skills to end up with one another. These behaviors encourage readers to act accordingly. 

Above all else, Center says her ideal romance story makes readers feel like they are the ones falling in love. 

“What I am most interested in as a reader is longing, yearning and kind of salivating for these two people to get together,” Center notes. “I want that vicarious experience of falling in love.”

The Rom-Commers’ Comedy and Chemistry

The Rom-Commers follows plucky, neurotic heroine Emma Wheeler. Though she is a lover of all things romantic comedy, Emma has no time for a relationship. She serves as a caregiver for her father, who suffers from traumatic brain injury and Ménière’s disease. While obsessing over her father’s sodium intake, she also moonlights as an entertainment reviewer and film professor in Houston.

One day, her high school ex-boyfriend calls with an offer: the chance to rewrite a movie script based on the iconic film It Happened One Night. She would also be collaborating with her favorite screenwriter Charlie Yates. She flies out to Los Angeles immediately to help Charlie breathe life into the romantic comedy script he massacred.

But there’s one thing standing in the way of Emma’s big Hollywood dreams. Charlie doesn’t want her help. After arriving at his Malibu mansion, Charlie nearly sends Emma packing before begrudgingly agreeing to work together on the screenplay and becoming housemates.

As the pair bicker, debate and joke over the script, they grow to respect each other’s writing and become fast friends. From cooking together to line dancing, Emma and Charlie’s platonic adventures drip with chemistry. Readers will want to reach into the book and shake these two crazy characters for the amount of times they refuse to declare their love for each other. 

“It’s an uplifting, deep story about how we take care of each other and how we can become the best version of ourselves in the face of it all,” Center says.