The Rom-Commers

Center’s novels, including The Rom-Commers, fall into the genres of contemporary romance and romantic comedy. Although The Rom-Commers deals with serious subject matter such as grief, death, and illness, it is underpinned by lighthearted and comedic moments that often shift the tone away from the heavier subject matter. Contemporary romances are categorized by happy endings and familiar plotlines but often focus on the main characters’ personal growth and the obstacles they must overcome to achieve their happy ending. As in The Rom-Commers, most contemporary romance heroines and heroes are flawed, and the narratives often show them helping each other mature and develop as they pursue romance and also become better and happier people.

Contemporary romance novels also often involve well-worn tropes, archetypes, and situations, such as friends-to-lovers relationships, marriage-of-convenience plotlines, and small-town settings. The Rom-Commers uses many conventions typical of contemporary romance novels, including the forced proximity trope, in which two people who are trying to avoid their attraction to one another are continually forced to be around one another. In novels like Center’s The Bodyguard and Ana Huang’s Twisted Games, characters with professional relationships serendipitously end up living together, as in The Rom-Commers. Forbidden love is another common romance convention used in The Rom-Commers, where it forces Emma and Charlie to confront the fears and priorities that prevent them from becoming romantically involved and hinder them personally.

The Rom-Commers and many of Center’s other novels also fall into the popular subgenre of the “workplace romance.” Workplace romances are so-called due to the characters having a professional relationship in some form. Though workplace romances vary widely in their plots, settings, and periods, books in this subgenre are essentially defined by the tension between characters’ romantic interests and their professional duties. In novels like Elena Armas’s The Spanish Love Deception, Ali Hazelwood’s Love, Theoretically, and Rachel Lynn Solomon’s The Ex Talk, characters’ attraction to one another often causes issues or distractions in their professional lives. As a whole, the subgenre of workplace romance often heightens the stakes of romantic conflict, as characters in these novels have more at stake than their hearts alone.