Review: Tessa Bailey’s It Happened One Summer.

Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for the complimentary ARC. All opinions provided are my own.

It Happened One Summer is a dirty delight from beginning to end.

I have spent time ranking my fave Tessa Bailey books & heroes before for funsies so please trust me when I say this book & Brendan + Alexis’s relationship are new faves & this book is basically a master class in romance.

Socialite Piper Bellinger has just been arrested for helping to break into a pool & throwing a major party when her Hollywood stepdad gives her temporary marching orders: she’s a liability to his film funding & needs to move to Westport, Washington, the town where she was born—& the town where her fisherman father lived when he died—for three months while her latest scandal blows over. She can help with her dad’s bar while she’s at it.

When Piper & her sister arrive, they find that the bar & the apartment are dumps & the people there—chiefly a hot but evidently married fisherman captain named Brendan Taggart—are less than charmed.

But Brendan’s actually a widower. & against his wishes he is charmed. Relentlessly so.

Where to start. Since this is a Tessa book I’m going to lead with the chemistry which is blistering. The sex scenes are filthy magic.

Brendan is G O N E for Piper soon after they meet & it’s a joy seeing how different they are & yet how he doesn’t want her to change. He loves her vanity & her desire for praise & spectacle & also her giant heart & bravery & sense of humor.

& three cheers for Piper, who by the end of the book knows who she is, what she wants, & who she wants it with. She’s learned what’s real & what isn’t.

This book is funny too—Brendan on Insta 🤣🤣— & hit every emotional note for me. It’s a feast for my carnal soul, it made me smile, & it made me wish for a sec that a real Brendan & Piper are in Westport, living their best life…on every flat surface in their home.

5 ⭐️. Release date: 07/13