Book Review: The Shippers by Katherine Center

Title: The Shippers
Author: Katherine Center
Pages: 336
Publication Date: May 19, 2026
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
Genres: Fiction / Romance / Contemporary
Synopsis:

One of the hottest, fastest-rising rom-com stars delivers her latest swoon-worthy novel about a destination wedding on a cruise ship.

After a whole lifetime of being bad at love, JoJo Burton decides to solve her intimacy issues once and for all at her sister’s destination wedding on a cruise ship. With the help of a little pop psychology, she diagnoses herself with a fixation on the neighborhood guy who was her her first crush and first kiss (and who just happens to be a newly-divorced wedding guest ), and she decides to woo him during the cruise for some long-delayed closure. Only problem is, her sister’s a little busy being a bride at the moment—so JoJo ropes in her childhood bestie, Cooper Watts, to be her wing man. Cooper: who RSVPed no, but then showed up, anyway. Cooper: who left town without a word four years earlier and moved to London. Cooper: who was, if she’s honest, the worst heartbreak of JoJo’s life. It’s bliss for her to see him again, and it’s agony, too—and the more they team up for Project Conquest, the more she obsesses over questions she can’t bring herself to ask.

Shipboard antics ensue in this witty, heart-tugging, childhood-friends-to-lovers romance—as JoJo and Cooper fake flirt, slow dance, share a cabin, sing duets, treat sunburns, get jealous, rescue each other over and over, and finally, at last, figure it all out in the most blissful, swoony, romantic way.

No one does summer romance quite like Katherine Center. THE SHIPPERS will take readers on the cruise of a lifetime in a story awash with romantic longing, top-notch banter, long-held secrets . . . and true love rediscovered.

LINKS: Goodreads | BookBub | Amazon | Bookshop.org

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The Shippers started with a promising premise. It had Runaway Bride vibes, and with childhood friends-to-lovers possibilities in the love story, I was all aboard for a cruise ship-set rom-com. Though I enjoyed some of the banter and fun moments, especially in the first half of the book, the second half fell flat for me.

Part of the reason I think this didn’t work for me is that the main characters acted way younger than their ages. I had to keep reminding myself they weren’t teenagers because some of the things they said and did were so immature. I also didn’t love how Cooper, the MMC, always seemed to run away or disappear instead of expressing his feelings. He and JoJo, the FMC, could have saved so much time if they had been honest with themselves and each other. It was so frustrating, as were some of the misunderstandings, and I kind of wished JoJo had more of a backbone because I wouldn’t have put up with some of the stuff she did.

A couple of the subplots didn’t ring true for me either, and one character’s complete reversal didn’t make sense to me at all. Everything that happened, especially in the last third of the book, felt too over the top, and I ended up not liking it as much as I’d hoped. All in all, I think it’s a fun story with an interesting premise, and I really liked the cruise ship setting. I think it will work for a lot of romance readers. For me, it was just ok.

Thanks to NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for providing me with a copy of the book. All thoughts are my own.

friends to lovers
forced proximity
wedding cruise
fake flirting

“There is no universe where you call me for help and I don’t come running.”

BookPage calls Katherine Center “the reigning queen of comfort reads.” She’s the New York Times bestselling author of eleven novels, including The Bodyguard, Hello Stranger, Things You Save in a Fire, and her summer 2024 book, The Rom-Commers. Katherine writes laugh-and-cry books: bittersweet romantic comedies about how life knocks us down—and how we get back up. She’s been compared to both Jane Austen and Nora Ephron, and the Dallas Morning News calls her stories, “satisfying in the most soul-nourishing way.” The Netflix movie adaptation of her novel Happiness for Beginners—starring Ellie Kemper and Luke Grimes—just hit the Global Top Ten in 81 countries, and the movie of her novel The Lost Husband was a surprise Netflix sensation in 2020, hitting number one and landing in their top 25 movies for the year. Her books have made countless Best-Of lists—at Audible, BookBub, and Book of the Month, as well as Goodreads’ Best Books of the Year, and Amazon’s yearly Top 100 books. Emily Henry calls The Bodyguard “my perfect 10 of a book,” and Jodi Picoult says of Things You Save in a Fire, “Just read it, and thank me later.” Katherine lives in her hometown of Houston, Texas, with her husband, two almost-grown teenagers, and their fluffy-but-fierce dog.