Title: The Roommate Risk
Author: Talia Hibbert
Publisher: Nixon House
Publication date: May 4th, 2021 (originally April 21, 2018)
352 pages
3/5 stars
Goodreads Synopsis
From New York Times bestselling author Talia Hibbert comes an electric, domestic, roommates-to-lovers romance between a whirlwind party girl and her uptight best friend…
Jasmine Allen believes in bad luck, great wine, and the seductive power of a stiletto heel. What she doesn’t believe in is love. Her life is perfect without all that romance rubbish—until a plumbing disaster screws everything up and leaves Jas homeless. Luckily, she has someone to turn to: her best friend Rahul.
For seven years, Rahul Khan has followed three simple rules.
* Don’t touch Jasmine if you can help it.
* Don’t look at her arse in that skirt.
* And don’t ever—ever—tell her you love her.
He should’ve added another rule: Do not, under any circumstances, let Jas move into your house.
Now Rahul is living with the friend he can’t have, and it’s decimating his control. He knows their shared dinners aren’t dates, their late-night kisses are a mistake, and the tenderness in Jasmine’s gaze is only temporary. One wrong word could send his skittish best friend running.
So why is he tempted to risk it all?
Review
“Sometimes, thinking badly about herself required her to think badly of other people, too. To imagine cruelties and ulterior motives and falseness behind every smile.”
Talia Hibbert, The Roommate Risk
I spontaneously purchased the Kindle version of this book when it was re-released as it was on sale and I’ve enjoyed Talia Hibbert’s books in the past. The steam was exactly what I was looking for, but the plot was not as captivating as her more recent series of romance novels.
I wanted more angst and pining from this book than I got. The Roommate Risk is told in dual POV’s (if you know me, this is a HUGE plus in my book), with some shifting timelines. The timeline changes weren’t done as well as they could have been, they didn’t really fit to serve a purpose in moving the plot along it just further explained the two character’s background. It just didn’t seem necessary most of the time.
In terms of steam, it is very steamy. A lot of open door scenes with explicit descriptions and content. For me, I love reading that but there are a lot of reader’s that don’t prefer that. In terms of plot, this book tries but is seriously lacking. There just isn’t much development past the relationship – I would’ve loved to see more conversations with her father discussing the past as well as more communication between the main characters. Also, there was a “big” build up in the plot that was teased for awhile that fell pretty flat.
Overall, not my favorite of Hibbert’s but steamy enough that it hit what I was looking for at the time I was reading.
Happy reading, folks!
Baltimore Bibliophile 