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Author of the week – Tessa Bailey.

 


                                                                            

­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­Unless you’ve been living under a rock, every romance at heart is aware of Tessa Bailey. The queen of rom-coms turn movies…..well kind of. In light of her new release, Wreck the Halls, I only thought it was fair that I finally speak upon my underlying lover for her – insert the heart eyes emoji!

Tessa Bailey’s ‘Hook, Line and Sinker’ was my first rom-com therefore making Tessa the first author that changed my life or rather broke my heart into tiny pathetic smithereens back in 2022. This book is actually a part of a Duology with the first book being ‘It Happened One Summer’ that is coming to the big screens since it shook the rom-come world in 2021. Now both books can definitely be read as stand-alone like I myself did, due to my lack of research, but reading it in order only adds to epilogue in Hook, Line and Sinker. My Bellinger Sisters family, IYKYK.

Since meeting Fox, Hannah and those little records, Tessa Bailey has slowly but surely become an insta-buy author for me. Obviously, since then I have been dabbling into a lot of authors and genres but she still remained in my top 3 for the vanilla books. As for the dark romance……you’ll have to read my future posts to find out more about it. Tessa Bailey is a safe read with guaranteed spice, plethora of swoon-worthy moments and happy ever after. I don’t find a lot of published books which I can confidently say would make fantastic movies, sometimes it feels a bit overdone to be honest. However, every book I have read from Tessa, has only made me want a movie or series of it after.

Now I’ll leave the researching her books to yourself, I don’t want to take that experience away. I’m from the UK so I’m in Waterstones whenever I can be to either pick up my pre-ordered books, order new ones or wreak havoc on the romance section upstairs. It truly is my guilty pleasure albeit a bit expensive at times.

So, I’ve read the Bellinger Sisters duo, on my way to reading the Vine Mess duo and I’ve just finished the stand-alone of 'Wreck the Halls' which is where I was at before I started my love letter for you know who. To be honest, I wasn’t going to pick up this book despite me literally saying 2 seconds ago that she was an insta-buy author for me and the reason was so stupid. Like, so so stupid. It’s a book about Christmas and it’s not EVEN Christmas yet. Like in the UK, the clocks haven’t even changed yet you know the whole Instagram algorithm but in time form; the days are shorter and the nights are longer. Well, we aren’t there yet! I will never understand why publishers can’t correlate the books to the time frame it’s written in. Anyways, I have a Waterstones advantage card and It’s satisfying to watch it get filled with stamps so I went into Waterstones only to find they didn’t even have it on their shelves. So I ordered it and 3 days later, 'Wreck the Halls' was sitting on my TBR shelf glaring at me. As if I was going to wait until Christmas. I whipped it off my shelf and began to read the story of Beat and Melody.

One word; edging. Read it. Trust me. Or don’t. But edging? Please as if Miss Bailey is scared of anything. By no means are any of the books slow-burns but I would say that this is a slower-burn than most of what I have read from this author. Truth be told, I think Elena Armas takes the spotlight for that one; talk about 'The Spanish Love Deception' (any minute now Aaron). It touched upon everything so perfectly. The main issues seemed to be – excuse my French – the edging and blackmail for beat paired with Melody’s desire to get out from under Trina’s wing. The meeting 1 decade prior really set the tone for the present day Beat and Melody which is the most important part of the plot. I found it very seamless just like the texts between Hanna and Fox in Hook, Line and Sinker. It made a re-appearance briefly when rather than rinsing it at every opening. The goal was simply to get Steel Birds live performance by Christmas Eve for both Beat and Melody to get 1 million dollars in return. Only one problem; Steel Birds broke up and the rock stars are no longer talking. Oh and the rock stars in conversation are the mothers of the ones having to make it all happen. So yeah. Not nice.

The whole reality TV show debacle had a balance to it and it wasn’t overly done. I’ve read a couple of rock star kids romances and it’s always just so predictable, long-winded and leaves me feeling unsatisfied but THIS was the opposite. I found myself wanting to pick it up 2 seconds after putting it down, it finally got colder in the UK so maybe that was another reason. I was able to spend a healthy amount of time with both Trina and Octavia without it being never-ending, the focus always came back onto Beat and Melody and the underlying current between Joseph and Danielle was just genius. I was gob smacked when I found out there was supposed to be a Joseph and Danielle book but it was scrapped. How dare she. You don’t understand I was so ready for Rhythm & Temp (the next generation children) to have a playdate with Danielle’s children. I guess I’ll just have to write it…..

 This in my eyes was a perfect comfort read and I will for sure be gifting this book to people on CHRISTMAS…..you know the time frame it was centred around. Not now. October. Autumn. You know what I’m getting at, Harper Fiction pay attention.

Next in line is 'Fangirl Down' which is set to be released in February of 2024. This is a duology and the cover alone makes me want to pick it up. It’s giving, obsessed, sports and steamy. For now, my top read from Tessa Bailey was Hook, Line and Sinker but that got trumped by 'Unfortunately Yours' and at the minute Natalie and August still take the lead but I’m glad to report back 'Wreck the Halls' is at a comfortable third. The most admirable thing about Tessa Bailey is that she’s very good at advertising which read it going to shock the rom-com world and which ones are a comfort blanket. She definitely set the right expectations for 'Wreck the Halls' and it’s hard to be disappointed when it’s all out in the open beforehand.

I hope I didn’t give away too many spoilers in the book. The last I want to do is recite the blurb word for one AND giving away the ending. It’s not cool.

Until the next Tessa Bailey book, I’m signing out but don’t forget to check out my thoughts on Elena Armas’s first published duology.

Vivian.

 Don’t forget to keep reading, because as long as you do, it’s making a struggling authors day that much better. Reach for the starts of success.


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