The Roommate Pact by
Allison Ashley Published by Mira on August 1, 2023
Genres: Contemporary Romance,
Romance Pages: 320
Format: ARC Source: Publisher Add to
Goodreads Buy on
Amazon All of the fun, none of the heartache…as long as they stick to the agreement.
The proposition is simple: if ER nurse Claire Harper and her roommate, firefighter Graham Scott, are still single by the time they’re forty, they’ll take the proverbial plunge together…as friends with benefits. Maybe it’s the wine, but in the moment, Claire figures the pact is a safe-enough deal, considering she hasn’t had much luck in love and he’s in no rush to settle down. Like, at all. Besides, there’s no way she could ever really fall for Graham and his thrill-seeking ways. Not after what happened to her father…
Just as things begin to heat up way before the proposed deadline, Graham’s injured in a serious rock-climbing accident—and he needs Claire’s help to heal. She’ll do whatever it takes to nurse him back to health…even if it means moving into Graham’s bed and putting up with his little dog who hates her. But with this no-strings arrangement taking a complicated turn, keeping “for now” from turning into “forever” isn’t as easy as they’d planned.
I read and really enjoyed Would You Rather, so I was excited to read this companion novel! Would You Rather features Noah and Mia, both of whom make multiple important appearances in The Roommate Pact. Both of them are close friends with Claire and Graham, who take center stage in this book. So while The Roommate Pact works fine as a standalone, I recommend you reading Would You Rather first for Noah’s and Mia’s sweet marriage of convenience love story. One thing you can expect with an Allison Ashley book is an emotional story with some humor thrown in, and that’s exactly what you get with The Roommate Pact! As always, my main points are bolded.
1. Friends to lovers is one of my favorite romance tropes, so I was happy Allison Ashley chose to use it again in this book. Claire and Graham are roommates and good friends. He’s a firefighter (mmmmmm) and she’s a nurse. They made a silly pact to become friends with benefits at 40 if they are not in serious relationships at that point, so you know they already have a tiny thing for one another. While chatting outside one night, Claire realizes how seriously Graham took that pact. The feelings start to bloom between them then and there, and go into overdrive when Graham is injured. Claire offers to help him recover at home, and that’s where our love story begins.
2. I really liked Graham and Claire! Both of them have some trauma from their pasts that make them reluctant to entertain any kind of relationship with the other, which is where the friends with benefits idea came from. Graham has a risky lifestyle, being a firefighter and a hiker/rock climber, and Claire experienced loss as a child as a result of someone else’s risky lifestyle, so he’s kind of off limits for her. She doesn’t want to constantly worry about losing the person she ends up. Graham was burned as a teen, and vowed never to fall in love again. Both of them are in for a rude awakening when they discover that love always finds a way around these kinds of rules people set for themselves.
3. I said I liked Claire, but Graham has my heart and deserves a little more discussion. Claire suggests that he journal during his recovery, and he decides to write her long emails while she’s at work instead. He sends them to an email address she hasn’t checked in ages, and finds this outlet to be very therapeutic. He learns a lot about himself and is so vulnerable. I really felt for him and loved seeing him grow and change. He’s just such a good guy. He’s a protector, a provider, and I love him. Oh, and he falls first. So good.
4. GERTRUDE. There is a tiny dog with a huge attitude in this book and I LOVED her. Gertie is Graham’s little princess, and boy is she spoiled. This dog hates Claire with every fiber of her being, and it was the cutest and funniest journey for the two of them. Gertie brought a lot of comedic relief to the story, which I loved.
5. The romance is a little formulaic as far as the friends to lovers trope goes, but it was sweet in the end. Graham is unable to speak for a little while due to a small injury in the hospital after being intubated, so OF COURSE this means Claire needs to sleep in his bed with him every night even though he texts her all day long. How convenient! I enjoyed their friendship and their conversations. I loved the trip they take together to his parents’ house, and Claire’s interactions with his parents. SO sweet. I really enjoyed delving into their minds and learning what they truly think about one another. Graham’s emails, where he pours out his heart had me in a puddle. There’s so many feelings on both sides. On the surface, though, there’s a lot of physical attraction and that’s the bulk of what actually propels the romance forward. Because they decide to become friends with benefits a few years earlier than originally planned their relationship starts out very physically driven, even though the actual intimate scenes are fade-to-black (which I thought that was an odd choice considering the nature of their relationship). Their foundation was formed before the book begins so readers arrive on scene just in time for things to get physical. I guess I just wanted to see more of that depth, rather than be told it’s there. I felt like I was missing a lot of info that I needed to be able to fully believe the love story. There was a lot of telling and not much showing.
6. There’s a lot of discussion surrounding grief, loss, illness, fear of the unknown, and processing trauma. These topics were handled with respect and sensitivity, which I really appreciated. I don’t tend to enjoy heavier topics like these in my romance because I read to try and get away from my own inner demons. But Allison Ashley does such a good job tackling weightier subject matter, and juxtaposing it with humor and flirtatious banter.
So all in all, I enjoyed this! I really loved Graham and his little Gertrude. I enjoyed seeing Claire and Graham open up and express their fears and grapple with what they have been through individually in their pasts. I do wish I had been able to see more depth to their relationship, rather than being told about it, but I do really like them as a couple. I’m definitely interested in seeing what Allison Ashley has in store for us next.
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