Clara Wheaton, the “good girl” in a wealthy East Coast family that’s prone to public scandal, travels to Los Angeles to be close to her erstwhile true love, Everett. When she arrives, though, she discovers that Everett is heading out on a tour with his band and has sublet his apartment to Josh, who appears to be a handsome if diffident slacker. Josh harbors a secret life, though, that threatens to upend Clara’s good reputation and draw her into a world she never imagined possible.
The Roommate by Rosie Danan is a fun and sexy (very sexy …) opposites attract story set on the edge of the adult film industry. Josh, Clara discovers quite quickly, is Josh Darling, a well-known porn performer, currently between contracts and recently separated from Naomi, the adult film actress with whom he rose to fame. At first, Clara is resistant to Josh’s charms — she’s a bit of a stick-in-the-mud, immediately laying down the law in the apartment about house rules, shared chores, and very clear boundaries — but she is eventually pulled into his orbit, and into a new project that threatens Josh and Naomi’s standing in their industry.
The slow-burn, stolen-glances part of Clara and Josh’s relationship is fun and well-executed. We pop in and out of their thoughts, so we know that the attraction is mutual while the characters are uncertain. There are a few high stakes moments — a car crash, a political campaign for which Clara is a PR consultant with her aunt’s firm, the threat of public humiliation when Clara’s name becomes attached to Josh and Naomi’s project — but the tone is mostly light. Per usual in contemporary romantic comedy, poor communication leads to much of the conflict, but if everyone in a romance novel was good at expressing their desires and showing their true emotions, there wouldn’t be a need for romance novels.
Things wrap up a bit too neatly — I was reminded a bit of the Duke’s appearance at the end of A Comedy of Errors setting things right — but I’m not sure there were many options available. Josh and Clara wrap up neatly, but Danan has set up a very sticky challenge for them that would take much longer to resolve without some minor deus ex machina intervention. I see that she has a follow-up, The Intimacy Experiment, that appears to be a similar opposites-attract story featuring Naomi, and I’m happy to put it on my TBR.
