The Roommate Risk by Talia Hibbert

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? This book was previously published as Wanna Bet?. The Roommate Risk is a steamy, standalone, diverse romance. This book is 75,000 words of fluff, angst, and extreme pleasure, with NO cliffhangers, NO cheating, and a guaranteed HEA. Please be aware: this story contains themes of parental neglect and abandonment, parental death, and alcohol dependence that could trigger certain audiences.

The slow burn was a little bit too slow for me in this one, which isn't something I usually say. I also feel like the book took too long to reveal the source of Jasmine's commitment issues (though to be fair, they were alluded to throughout). I really liked how everything wasn't completely perfect at the end, but Jasmine and Rahul were both trying. This isn't quite as delightful as the Brown Sisters series, but it's Talia Hibbert and she won't let you down.

(2021 Summer Romance Bingo: friends to lovers.)

This book was hella raw and emotional, not gonna lie.

I've been debating for a while, whether or not to give it 5⭐️, because there was just one thing that made me want to go mad, but I decided it wasn't of enough importance overall.

It's my first time reading Talia Hibbert and I loved how she writes. Specially how she wrote Rahul. WHAT A BOOK BOYFRIEND Y'ALL. I need more writers writing men like that.

That boy lived and breathed for one person, and one person only. And honestly? Who wouldn't wish they were Jas, I definitely did.

The only perk I could find was that I couldn't stand people ignoring the fact that Jas had problems.

It's a pet-peeve of mine I've realised. I like to call people on their bullshit, and I hater, HATED, how all her friends were like, okay, dangerous territory, better not talk about that.

NO. MAKE HER TALK ABOUT IT, GODDAMNIT. Homegirl was drowning in all her unspoken thoughts, and all of them saw it, AND NONE OF THEM DID NOTHING. UGH.

That's it. That was the thing driving me mad. But then I remember Rahul and I just can't, I cannot give the book 5⭐️. So there you have it.

💬: "It was exhausting to realise that everyone in the world knew he was an absolute fool for Jasmine Allen. He straightened his spine and ran a hand through his hair, suddenly realising that he must look a state—must look as out of control as he felt. And that wouldn’t do."

Hibbert, Talia. The Roommate Risk (p. 279). Nixon House. Kindle Edition.

📖Genres: romance, contemporary, contemporary romance,

📚Page Count: 333

🎧Audiobook Length: 09h 36min

👩🏾‍🏫My Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ - 4.5/5

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The Roommate Risk by Talia Hibbert is a contemporary romance and the second book in The Midnight Heat Collection, by the same author. The Roommate Risk is about two best friends, Jasmine and Rahul. Jasmine lives with a roommate but she soon finds out that her room and everything in it has been damaged if not destroyed because there was a major water leak in her bedroom. With nowhere to go, Jasmine contacts her best friend Rahul because she knows that his apartment has an open room and she hopes that she can rent it for a while. Little does Jasmine know that Rahul has been in love with her for the last 7 years of their lives together as best friends. Will Jasmine moving in complicate everything in the best or worst way?

I really enjoyed this story, it was romantic, sweet, and angsty. I love the chemistry between Rahul and Jasmine, I think they're cute together. They both have their own stuff that they're dealing with and the author does an okay job of depicting that with Rahul and an even better job depicting it with Jasmine. There was this really cute scene where Rahul takes Jasmine on a date and I couldn't stop smiling during that scene, it was just adorable and a little spicy. I think the only issue that I had with the story was a trope that takes place in the last part of the book, and it was basically <spoiler>a third act break up but to continue to spoil things I will say that there IS an happily every after at the end so it all ends up working out. I understand why there was a break up near the end, because Jasmine had a lot of stuff she needed to sort through. I think it was a good choice to write in that she got a therapist and started working through her emotional and insecurity issues as well as her drinking problem.</spoiler>

The spicy scenes were really enjoyable. I might have really liked them because I dated someone in college with the same name and look as the main male character and memories were doin' their thing, but wow these spicy scenes were great. I'm giving the spicy scenes four chilies 🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️out of five chilies

I really enjoyed this novel, it made me smile and I definitely swooned over the main male character. I'm giving this 5 out of 5 stars.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ - 4.5/5 Stars

Thank you [NetGalley.com], Talia Hibbert (the author), and Dreamscape Media (publisher) for the arc (advanced reader's copy) of the audiobook.