The Roommate / The Intimacy Experiment / Rosie Danan
1,001 Days of Awesome Reads - Day 78 - #2020sTuesdays
#2020sTuesdays
I wasn’t reviewing much over the past couple of years, so I’m going to take some time on Tuesdays to swoon over books I read and loved in 2020 and 2021.
If you missed THE ROOMMATE (2020) and THE INTIMACY EXPERIMENT (2021) by Rosie Danan (The Shameless series), then please go find them and pick them up. (Assuming you’re a true romance fan, enjoy books that ask you to question your own assumptions, don’t mind some hot sex in your books, and think the idea of reading about a porn star who truly is a worthy romance hero sounds fascinating. Because, wow, the way Danan represents these characters is brilliant and truly thought-provoking.)
One of the reasons I love romance is because it’s the genre that best represents female agency and empowerment, and often, especially thanks to books like these, it asks us to question the way we perceive the world.
Rosie Danan asks us to reconsider what we know about the porn industry and the people who profit from it, as opposed to the people who perform in it. Then, she takes these (porn star) characters and matches them with people who, on paper, seem completely wrong for them, yet turn out to be absolutely perfect. Yes, of course, it’s a romance, that’s how it’s going to end. But the way they get there, and the choices they make to empower themselves, heal deep wounds—some of them caused by their life choices, and the unfair way society has punished them—and choose to pursue love and happiness are seriously riveting and inspiring.
Truly some of the best romance to come out in the past few years.
Really intrigued to see where the author goes next, because how you top a rabbi and an ex-porn star turned CEO is possibly a question for the ages. ;o)
I can’t recommend these highly enough.
Happy reading!
Explore more Rosie Danan and her books on her website: rosiedanan.com
and at Amazon:
The Roommate | Rosie Dannon | The Intimacy Experiment
These posts are here too:
instagram.com/bobbidumas | facebook.com/BobbiWrites
You can see all the books so far in the 1,001 Days of Awesome Reads project, which launched 2/14/22:
booksandfriends.substack.com/archive
from the cover of THE ROOMMATE:
House Rules:
Do your own dishes
Knock before entering the bathroom
Never look up your roommate online
The Wheatons are infamous among the east coast elite for their lack of impulse control, except for their daughter Clara. She’s the consummate socialite: over-achieving, well-mannered, predictable. But every Wheaton has their weakness. When Clara’s childhood crush invites her to move cross-country, the offer is too tempting to resist. Unfortunately, it’s also too good to be true.
After a bait-and-switch, Clara finds herself sharing a lease with a charming stranger. Josh might be a bit too perceptive—not to mention handsome—for comfort, but there’s a good chance he and Clara could have survived sharing a summer sublet if she hadn’t looked him up on the Internet...
Once she learns how Josh has made a name for himself, Clara realizes living with him might make her the Wheaton’s most scandalous story yet. His professional prowess inspires her to take tackling the stigma against female desire into her own hands. They may not agree on much, but Josh and Clara both believe women deserve better sex. What they decide to do about it will change both of their lives, and if they’re lucky, they’ll help everyone else get lucky too.
and
from the cover of THE INTIMACY EXPERIMENT:
Naomi and Ethan will test the boundaries of love in this provocative romance from the author of the ground-breaking debut, The Roommate.
Naomi Grant has built her life around going against the grain. After the sex-positive start-up she cofounded becomes an international sensation, she wants to extend her educational platform to live lecturing. Unfortunately, despite her long list of qualifications, higher ed won't hire her.
Ethan Cohen has recently received two honors: LA Mag nominated him as one of the city's hottest bachelors and he became rabbi of his own synagogue. Low on both funds and congregants, the executive board of Ethan's new shul hired him with the hopes that his nontraditional background will attract more millennials to the faith. They've given him three months to turn things around or else they'll close the doors of his synagogue for good.
Naomi and Ethan join forces to host a buzzy seminar series on Modern Intimacy, the perfect solution to their problems--until they discover a new one--their growing attraction to each other. They've built the syllabus for love's latest experiment, but neither of them expected they'd be the ones putting it to the test.
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