#SundayShelfie + Review

You know that thrill you get when someone’s writing is just really, really good? I had it often when reading Cat Sebastian’s The Perfect Crimes of Marian Hayes.

Sebastian is someone who’s writing I just *delight* in, to an extravagant amount. There are so many lines in this ARC that I wanted to share as evidence of how good it is—like one about cake & religious icons—so many moments when I felt a smile growing & also greedily thought, I *H A V E* to get a copy of this for my shelves.

This book picks up action-wise during and after The Queer Principles of Kit Webb, taking Marian Hayes and Rob Brooks as its focus. After shooting her duke bigamist-husband, Marian “kidnaps” the charming Rob Brooks (formerly a highwayman who has been presumed dead for a year) & they travel to visit her sick father & prepare for any fallout from the shooting.

TPCoMH is a rich & sexy cornucopia of tropes:
🖤 Road Trip
🖤 Some Epistolary
🖤 Forced Proximity
🖤 Oops I blackmailed you to lovers
🖤 A tiny bit of the forbidden (though that’s not really a big dissuasion bc our leads have big IDGAF energy)
🖤Some Deception Plot

& a dynamic between MCs that honestly makes my wings soar & my whole reading persona lusty: she is severe & uptight & authoritative & he LOVES IT & thinks she is PERFECT. When I tell you I loved how this became part of their intimate moments...

There’s so much to love about this romance: the humor (honestly I cracked up all the time), the care (from both of them), Marian’s fierceness & what this book says about motherhood & parenting in general, the found family this group makes 🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺, & what it means to choose yourself.

I loved it & adored it.

I jumped into Sonali Dev’s The Rajes series with the final book, The Emma Project, a retelling of—you’ve prob guessed it—Jane Austen’s Emma.

Brimming with passion & vitality & with characters who feel layered, this is an interesting read that I’m still trying to pin down.

I could definitely tell that this was the final book. It has the air of things boiling up & coming to fruition over a period of time & unfortunately I do think I would have appreciated some of the pacing & structural elements more had I read earlier books.

But with that being said I found lots to appreciate about The Emma Project, newby to the series that I was.

Starting with the complex characters—even the secondary characters assert themselves & contribute to the story, whether the leads want entirely want them to or not 😉.

The family dynamics are sometimes loving, sometimes frustrating, & it’s really cool how past main characters aren’t perfect in this book just because of their once-vaunted MC status.

The Emma Project features childhood friends to lovers, 12 year age gap (she’s older), once fake-engaged to your brother, workplace romance. The sex scenes are mostly fade to black but there’s a lot of emotional intimacy here; it’s really sweet seeing how much Vansh knows Naina & vice versa—their understanding goes bone deep.

There are a lot of challenging family undercurrents in this read, including an abusive father (see my CWs) & I would have liked possibly some more time just on the development of Vansh & Naina as a couple, outside of their families. Those loom pretty large.

But this is a rich story told in a lovely, happy, & haunting voice & I would imagine a great conclusion to the series.

Well if this book isn’t a gosh darn delight. Act Your Age, Eve Brown had me smiling & even LOLing on a family road trip; it’s winsome, quirky, & sexy & on a *totally* unrelated note I just bought some unnecessary glasses for my husband (jkjkjkjk).

At the beginning of the novel Eve Brown is staring down another career that didn’t work out. Her stunned parents issue some tough love: Eve won’t receive any more trust money until she satisfies some employment conditions & she must find a new place to live.

She takes off for the countryside where she meets rude, supremely starchy Jacob Wayne, owner of a Bed & Breakfast, at a job interview he’s hosting for a chef position.

When Jacob follows her to offer her a chance to show off her skills—after initially blowing her off—she accidentally runs over him & yada yada yada, winds up with the chef job.

If you’ve been reading the Brown Sister series you want to read this latest electric installment. & if you haven’t then you’ll want to read it too . It’s grumpy & the sunshine, starchy & the charmer, forced proximity, opposites attract fantastic-ness & I laughed internally & got other major feels all the way through.

I love how Eve and Jacob find friends (& lovers) in each other, how neither one of them has to change to entice the other into tolerating or wanting them.

A big hurrah! for Eve, who learns so much about herself (her awareness that she is on the autism spectrum like Jacob—and how we see his thoughts about it too—feels particularly lovely) & for Jacob, both of whom take brave steps toward each other.

I felt like I could have used a little more time with Jacob’s breakthrough but really he is working toward it through the whole book & can you blame him for realizing how foolish he’s been almost right away?  (<—talking to myself.)

This book is a joy-filled (maybe it would be more accurate to say joy-inducing) ending to a great series.​

Thanks for joining me at my stop on the Blog Tour! I hope you'll stop by again! 

Leo stuck his hands in his pockets and sauntered toward her, taking a spot
beside her at the edge of the roof. “So. You’re a long way from home. How long have
you been in the city?”

Her smile wavered, the reminder of her lies of omission twisting bolts on the
sides of her throat. “Oh, not long.” She turned and propped her arms on the wall,
looking out over the city blocks. “I wish my mother could see this.”

“You said she owns a dancing school. Was she your teacher?”

“When I was little, yes. Around age ten, she thought I needed something a little
more advanced.” She gave him a prim look. “It paid off, too, don’t you know? You might
remember me from a certain national Red Rover Yogurt commercial.”

He turned slightly, squinting an eye at her. “Wait a minute. No way.”

Reese pushed off the wall and performed the soft shoe routine she’d done
thousands of times—mostly as a party trick—since the age of eleven. “No preservatives
or chemicals, we’ve got your all-natural meals,” she sang, “Choose Red Rover products
and kick up your heels.”

“Holy shit.” He stared at her, dumbfounded. “The audacity of me to ask out a
celebrity.”

“Please.” She fluffed her hair. “I put my pants on one leg at a time like everyone
else.”

They seemed to gravitate toward each other naturally, as if there was no other
option, until their faces were a handful of inches apart. “How about those shorts?” he
said gruffly. “You get those on the same way?”

A hot, fizzy stream of awareness circled and danced in her midsection. This was
flirting. But not the kind she was used to. Where she worried about every line out of her
mouth, worrying they would come across too desperate. Or if the guy would think she
was funny. No, it was easy as breathing to pull back the edge of her coat, drawing his
attention downward. “What? These old things?”

“Yeah.” A muscle ticked in his cheek. “Those.”

She leaned in like they were sharing a secret and watched his eyes darken. “I
have to wiggle around a little to get these on.”

They exhaled into each other’s space, not bothering to hide the fact that both of
them were breathing faster. “Damn, Reese.”

There was a wealth of meaning in those two words. Not just, damn, you look
good in those shorts. But damn, this attraction between them was not typical. “I know,”
she said in a rush, their mouths almost touching. She wasn’t sure what made her pull
away before he could close the distance for a kiss. Maybe it was to gather her wits or a
tug from her conscience. But she took a long pull of February air to perform
maintenance on her short-circuiting brain. “So, um…” She resisted the urge to fan
herself. “How long have you owned the bakery?”

With his own centering breath, Leo slowly settled back in a safe distance away.
“Four years,” he said, voice gravelly. “Took me a while after culinary school to build the
capital and find the right people. The right place. Didn’t want to rush it.”

“Capital?” Her question hung in the air for several seconds before she realized
what a stupid assumption she’d made. “Forget I said that. I just…I thought with your
father being who he is…”

“That I would have an automatic investor?” He shrugged a shoulder. “Natural to
assume that. Don’t worry about it.” There was an assessing glance in her direction, as if
he wasn’t sure whether to say more. She held her breath, hoping he would. “I guess it
didn’t feel right taking money for something he doesn’t have a real interest in. Baking.
I’m not saying he’s unsupportive. We’re just about different things. Felt better doing it on
my own.”

“That’s admirable.” She wanted to tell him how much she could relate. Currently.
Trying to grasp something that felt just within reach, refusing any shortcuts. How it could
feel scary and unfair one minute, rewarding the next. “And I guess you found the right
people. Jackie and Tad.”

Warmth moved in his expression. “Yeah. Tad was actually an usher downstairs
when I met him. We interviewed Jackie together. She’d just dropped out of nursing
school because the emotional toll was more than she expected.”

“So she went for the exact opposite.”

“Only for a while. I doubt she’ll be at the Cookie Jar forever. But I’ll be glad to
have her as long as she puts up with my grumpy ass.”

“You’re not coming across as grumpy as you did Saturday night.”

“That’s because I’m trying to charm you into going out with me. Is it working?”

Her laugh drifted out over the rooftops. “Maybe. How long until the grump
returns?”
​
“I skipped lunch. So…imminently.”

​Download your copy today or read FREE in Kindle Unlimited!

Amazon: https://amzn.to/3qLixkj
Amazon Worldwide: http://mybook.to/SweetestFix
Amazon Paperback: https://amzn.to/3qQ9OO3
Add The Sweetest Fix to Goodreads: http://bit.ly/3qMG0la

Tessa Bailey is originally from Carlsbad, California. The day after high school
graduation, she packed her yearbook, ripped jeans and laptop, driving cross-country to
New York City in under four days.

Her most valuable life experiences were learned thereafter while waitressing at K-Dees,
a Manhattan pub owned by her uncle. Inside those four walls, she met her husband,
best friend and discovered the magic of classic rock, managing to put herself through
Kingsborough Community College and the English program at Pace University at the
same time. Several stunted attempts to enter the workforce as a journalist followed, but
romance writing continued to demand her attention.

She now lives in Long Island, New York with her husband of eleven years and seven-
year-old daughter. Although she is severely sleep-deprived, she is incredibly happy to be living her dream of writing about people falling in love.

​Website: https://www.tessabailey.com
Facebook: http://bit.ly/2sScu5g
Instagram: http://bit.ly/36pRws6
Amazon Author Page: https://amzn.to/2NSjQgA
Goodreads: http://bit.ly/37nMrSB
Join her Reader Group: http://bit.ly/2uoDGZP
Stay up to date with Tessa Bailey by joining her mailing list: http://bit.ly/36j2TCl