Hook,Line and Sinker by Tessa Bailey

Hook,Line, and Sinker
Series: It Happened One Summer
Author: Tessa Bailey
Check it Out: Goodreads

King crab fisherman Fox Thornton has a reputation as a sexy, carefree flirt. Everyone knows he’s a guaranteed good time–in bed and out–and that’s exactly how he prefers it. Until he meets Hannah Bellinger. She’s immune to his charm and looks, but she seems to enjoy his… personality? And wants to be friends? Bizarre. But he likes her too much to risk a fling, so platonic pals it is.

Now, Hannah’s in town for work, crashing in Fox’s spare bedroom. She knows he’s a notorious ladies’ man, but they’re definitely just friends. In fact, she’s nursing a hopeless crush on a colleague and Fox is just the person to help with her lackluster love life. Armed with a few tips from Westport’s resident Casanova, Hannah sets out to catch her coworker’s eye… yet the more time she spends with Fox, the more she wants him instead. As the line between friendship and flirtation begins to blur, Hannah can’t deny she loves everything about Fox, but she refuses to be another notch on his bedpost.

Living with his best friend should have been easy. Except now she’s walking around in a towel, sleeping right across the hall, and Fox is fantasizing about waking up next to her for the rest of his life and… and… man overboard! He’s fallen for her, hook, line, and sinker. Helping her flirt with another guy is pure torture, but maybe if Fox can tackle his inner demons and show Hannah he’s all in, she’ll choose him instead?

It Happened One Summer ★★★★

I knew going into this that it most likely wouldn’t be a favorite because I’m not a fan of the friends to lovers trope. However, since I read the first one and it’s Tessa Bailey I decided why not. I liked It Happened One Summer so much more. Not only because of the trope but because Hannah didn’t have that same energy and vibe as her sister. Her character was a little flat.

This was filled with a lot of push and pull on Fox’s end. He had a lot of inner turmoil about how he felt and saw himself. That got old pretty fast and also held up the progress of the relationship between him and Hannah. Like, get over it my guy. So what if the town thought that he was just a good time and wouldn’t be good or faithful to Hannah. She told him so many times that she just wanted him and trusted him. His inner issues got repetitive.

I don’t like books with a bunch of angst and there was a lot of it along with so much pining for the other person. It made the book drag out to me because we know they have chemistry, but we had so much drama that the romance (when it finally happened) was a ”ugh, finally” moment instead of ”yay, finally!”.

So while I love me a Tessa Bailey book, this sadly didn’t work out for me.