Tessa Bailey

3.7 stars

I received this book for free, this does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review

A nanny job should be a cakewalk, right?

The Au Pair Affair is second in the Big Shots series were the friends of the main couple from book one, get their time to shine. Tallulah is in a cafe across from Burgess' penthouse, when she catches a clip of the hockey player elbowing an opposing player in the nose. Even though her gut told her she could trust Burgess and really got along show more with his twelve year old daughter Lissa, the trauma of surviving one man who hid his true self until it was too late for Tallulah, is now resurfacing. Even when Burgess walks into the cafe and Tallulah gets those calming vibes from him, she's scared to trust herself. It's not until Burgess' scheme to pay the majority of rent to make sure Tallulah is safe with a teammate's almost step-sister, that Tallulah decides to trust her instincts and take the job. While Burgess is trying to respect the boundaries of their age difference, eleven years, and boss/employee dynamic, Tallulah is ready to act on all that steamy chemistry between them, but wants to keep it no strings. Burgess knows they have the real thing though, he'll accept nothing but hearts fully committed.

“Give me a chance to show you that you’re safe with me.”

I had no problems jumping into the series here and liked how the story got rolling right away. Tallulah and Burgess had palpable heat right away, something that Bailey excels at and was much appreciated. Bailey also knew what she was doing when she made Burgess the one who wanted their relationship to be real and committed. Having him lay his cards out right away, his serious feelings for Tallulah, worked because it plays into his more mature age, thirty-seven, and helps take away any ick feelings to their boss/nanny relationship with giving Tallulah the decision making control. Tallulah wants to sleep with Burgess but is still working to fully reclaim her daring, live life to the fullest self after her traumatic experience (we get Tallulah telling Burgess about what happened later in the story). Burgess was never pushy but never let an opportunity to show Tallulah who he was pass-by, he says he'll be her bodyguard when she's nervous to do some daring bucket list items, like skinny dipping. It all works because he's there supporting her, while having the hots for her, and Tallulah's in the driver's seat for their encounters but always getting tempted by Burgess.

Tallulah did a little skip as she reached him and his heart followed suit. Yeah. Yeah, she was worth trying for.

Along with Tallulah learning to trust herself again, there's some of Burgess having angst over his age and how it's leading to the eventual end of his career and how he's having issues connecting with his daughter Lissa. There's not a lot of hockey in this, more like peripherally job shading in but how Tallulah bonds with Lissa and helps Burgess' relationship with his daughter definitely added a sweet strengthening block to their relationship. Just when Tallulah is deciding to fully go with her gut, some of the danger on the horizon hinted at comes into play and the second half has an angst moment where Lissa's preteen emotions and hopes throws a wedge into Tallulah and Burgess' relationship and when Burgess gets a serious injury, he lashes out with hurtful words, shattering some of that trust Tallulah had built up.

He usually defended other people, but . . . she’d come to his defense?

The third act breakup happens early enough in the latter second half, that we get a good look at Burgess actionable working for it to get Tallulah back and a believable working through her emotions Tallulah. A little forced proximity at the wedding of book one's couple, will probably delight readers of the series as they get another look at their HEA. Overall, this felt more refined than earlier works of Bailey I've read and I thought made this read even better, the hotness is still there but I believed in the emotion even more. There feels like a set-up happening between one of Burgess' teammates and the teammate's not quite step-sister that has me desperately wanting to read their book and I hope it's next in the series. This, had Burgess knowing what he wants and won't compromise for it but always supporting and protecting and Tallulah building herself back up with her own strength but only growing stronger when she leaned on Burgess' support, and hotness, don't forget the hotness. show less

Officer Off Limit
4 Stars

Daniel Chase, a skilled hostage negotiator with a reputation as a ladies' man, has finally met the woman of his dreams. Unfortunately, she is also his mentor's estranged daughter and has recently been jilted by her fiancé. Is this true love or simply a rebound romance?

A delightful romance despite the heroine's unfortunate name - Story Brooks? Really? Who thought that was a good idea?

But I digress...

Daniel and Story are wonderful together and in this particular case, show more the insta-love trope actually works well as Bailey manages to pack a great deal of plot and characterization into a relatively short novelette.

Both Daniel and Story are likable and have well-developed backstories that establish a strong foundation for their relationship. The fact that Story calls Daniel out on some of his more alpha-male possessive tendencies and also reacts like a mature adult to issues that arise regarding his past make her even more appealing.

In addition to their intense physical attraction and delightful banter, there is also a strong emotional bond that grows stronger as Daniel and Story spend more time together.

The final twists at the end add an extra layer of intensity to the otherwise straightforward contemporary romance themes.

All in all, a fun read and look forward to Brent and Hayden's love-hate relationship next. show less

I found this wildly entertaining—but not, I'm fairly sure, in the way that Tessa Bailey intended. Don’t let the colourful contemporary cover fool you: if you stripped out the references to Instagram and smartphones, It Happened One Summer could pass quite easily as one of those awful 80s romance novels where Alpha Male Assholes do their best to Possess a swooning, delicate Female Flower.

Everything about Brendan, we are told, is Manly with a Capital M. He’s possessive, regressive (no show more women allowed on a fishing boat, nosirree), monotonous, and male. Have I mentioned he’s a dude? Because the “pride hardening his chest” is described as “masculine”, as are the “thick ropes” of his back muscles; he smells of “salt water and unapologetic maleness” (which is… what, exactly? Lynx bodyspray?) and “real, actual male exertion.” He occasionally shows “rare male vulnerability” but mostly Brendan’s expression is one of “male appreciation [that draws] his features tight.” (I have to imagine that Brendan spends a lot of the book looking mildly constipated.)

Piper, however, well she’s “soft, graceful, feminine. So much smaller than him.” She’s shallow and vapid, and nothing about her supposed maturing as the novel progresses or her coming to terms with her biological father’s death rings true or is developed enough. When she gets turned on, she doesn’t get wet: “feminine pleasure turned to slickness between her thighs.” She doesn’t have a vagina: she has “a femininity”, a “juncture”, a “notch.” (Brendan, by the way, is described as “notch[ing] his first few inches inside of her wet heat”—so he notched her notch?) She’s desperate for a man to possess and control her and provide for her and it’s all wildly offputting.

And that’s even before we get to the sex scenes. I do not mind explicit sex scenes! My beef with this book isn’t that there are a lot of explicit sex scenes: it’s that they’re so bad. It’s that there’s so much terrible dialogue which seems like it was ripped from the script of a very rote porno:

“Y-you’re an ass man, I guess,” she stammered.

He shook his head. “No, Piper. I’m a this-ass man.”

“Oh,” she simpered.

This was around the point where I started sending snippets of it to friends because if I had to suffer facial tics and low-grade hysterics while reading this, then so did they.

“She didn’t even know which part of her was in command. Her head, her heart, her lady business. Or maybe they all three were, three bitches hitting the switches of her control panel.”

Here I started laughing so hard that I had a coughing fit.

“She climaxed. Which was a pitiful word for travelling to a distant plane where fairies danced and gumdrops rained from the sky.”

I don’t know about you, but when I’m reading a sex scene I don’t want to have the Gingerbread Man from Shrek pop up in the back of my mind shrieking “not my gumdrop buttons!”

“Show me what I do to that high-maintenance pussy.”

Presumably, people got paid to publish this. The mind reels.

Look, if your kink is TradWife roleplay, well, your kink is not my kink, but vaya con dios. But for the love of God, please be upfront that that’s what you’re writing. Don’t market it as Schitt’s Creek fanfic, because Alexis Rose would never.

And even setting aside all of the gender essentialist bullshit, this is just a badly written book. The prose is clunky, the plot (such as it is) is risible, the town of Westport is barely sketched in as a place, and side characters are unconvincing as people and/or are dropped along with their plotlines. (You’d think that a book about a woman returning to her barely-remembered hometown after more than twenty years away, where her mother was from, her estranged grandmother lived, and her father had died tragically, would make more of those potentially very powerful storylines! You would think that, and you’d be very wrong!) show less

Is it possible for a book to make you blush? Yes, yes it is and this book had me blushing A LOT (and I think my eyes almost popped out of my head at one point). This book is intense and HOT as fire. It is like Bailey challenged the fake relationship concept to a fun game of Twister. Along with a lot of humor and some page scorching moments, this book also dives into how one's past and the perspectives of others can destroy you or propel you forward. I truly enjoy the nuggets of wisdom these show more authors tend to slip it. show less