CBR15 Book 56: "Hook, Line and Sinker" by Tessa Bailey

Page count: 400 pages

Rating: 4 stars

Seven months ago, Hannah Bellinger left the little fishing town of Westport, Washington to go back to her life in Los Angeles. Her former socialite sister, Piper, stayed behind, happily engaged to a gruff crab fishing captain. While her sister at first mainly argued with and then fell like a ton of bricks for the gruff captain, Hannah spent quite a lot of time with his second in command, the very handsome Fox Thornton. Because of his womanizing ways, Hannah very quickly decided that no matter how good-looking and charming the man was, she was not going to become another conquest for him, but nevertheless enjoyed his company a lot. As a farewell present when she was about to return to LA, Fox left her a coveted Fleetwood Mac album that she had seen at a record expo but decided against buying for herself. Since music is as important to Hannah as breathing, the present was obviously very meaningful. She and Fox keep communicating via text messages, which both try to pretend mean less than they do, despite the fact that after a while, they communicate more with each other than anyone else in their lives. 

When in LA, Hannah works as a production assistant to an artsy film director, whom she's had a crush on for years. Since her stepfather is a very influential movie producer, she could probably have gotten a much swankier job, but Hannah wanted to work her way up the ranks honestly. Two years later, just fetching coffee and doing grunt work is getting a bit stale, though. Hannah dreams of working on movie soundtracks, but also struggles to make anyone actually notice her. She thinks of herself as a supporting character in the lives of others. Nevertheless, because she misses Westport, her sister (and if she allowed herself to admit it, Fox), she summons up the courage to pitch the fishing town as an alternate location to the film her movie director boss is currently making, since LA clearly isn't creating the correct vibe. Her absolutely lyrical descriptions of the town sell the temperamental director on the idea, and soon Hannah will be back near her sister and the man she keeps thinking about (as a friend) for an extended period.

Because this is a romance, and circumstances need to conspire to throw our potential lovers closer together, of course, Piper and Brendan, her handsome captain, can't let Hannah stay at theirs for the duration of the film shoot. No, she'll have to stay with Fox, in his spare room. But this is totally OK because they're just platonic friends, Fox won't even be there half the time because he'll be off on fishing trips, and Hannah still nurses that crush on her director, right?

Of course, once Hannah actually spends some time with Fox, she discovers not only that he actually has terrible self-esteem issues, literally seeing himself as nothing but a walking one-night stand, but that the attraction she feels towards him, and that he clearly returns is far from platonic. Fox witnessed his dad's womanising from an early age until it broke his parents up, and everyone around him, including his own parents, teachers, and others in the community seemed to believe that because he looked a lot like his dad, he was going to turn out exactly like him. This became a self-fulfilling prophecy - Fox started dating early and subscribed to the 'leave them before they leave you' attitude, never believing himself worthy of anything else or capable of change. He thinks Brendan is crazy for suggesting he take over as captain on Della Ray once Brendan's new, bigger fishing boat is completed. He makes self-deprecating jokes at his own expense and laughs at all the jokes about what an unreliable manwhore he is. 

Everyone warns him away from Hannah because she's the sister of his best friend's fiancée and someone who is clearly looking for a long-term relationship, not some brief and empty hook-up. Since Fox never really brought his female conquests to Westport, no one has really noticed that in the seven months since Hannah left, he hasn't been hooking up with anyone, being quite content with celibacy (because he's head over heels for Hannah). She, on the other hand, very quickly realises that her feelings for Sergei, her director boss, must have faded at some point. The only one whose attention she wants is Fox.

Fox's terrible self-image and how he's never even tried to break free of his man slut reputation (with one notable exception, which ended terribly and just further confirmed to him that his only worth is to give short-term sexual gratification to random ladies) is the biggest obstacle Hannah and Fox have to work through. There's also the fact that Hannah's home and work are in LA, and her stay in Westport isn't going to last longer than the film takes to complete. Fox doesn't believe himself capable of a long-term relationship, nor that he is in any way good enough for Hannah. Neither of them thinks a long-distance thing is going to work, but it might be career suicide for Hannah to move to the Pacific Northwest just as she's actually starting to make her boss notice her and consider her for a promotion. 

It Happened One Summer was cute and a very quick read. In that, Piper had the self-esteem issues and had to figure out who she really was, because no one had ever expected anything of her or believed her capable of anything except being a walking fashion plate. In this book, the esteem issues go even deeper and there is definitely more angst. Frankly, it's clear that most people have been hella judgmental and shitty to Fox, and he's let them and laughed along with it because he never thought to argue with their opinions. Because Hannah wants to show him that he has more to offer than just sex, she refuses to sleep with him for most of the book, wanting him to see that she likes him and his company, not just his looks and his body. 

Tessa Bailey seems to be a bit up and down quality-wise, with some of her books getting a lot of praise, while others seem borderline unreadable. I picked up these books because a very persuasive bookseller promised me I'd like them based on other romance titles I mentioned. I'm glad she was right, but I'm not sure I'm going to run out and get a bunch more of Bailey's books just because these two worked for me. 

Judging a book by its cover: I like how the cover artist manages to give Fox really awkward body language, while Hannah, who initially is very timid and reluctant to speak up, looks happy and confident. 

Crossposted on Cannonball Read

CBR15 Book 42: "It Happened One Summer" by Tessa Bailey

Page count: 416 pages

Rating: 4 stars

CBR15 Bingo: Relation"ship" (A book about sisterly love, romantic love and featuring large fishing boats)

Apparently, our heroine, Piper Bellinger, is strongly inspired by Alexis Rose in Schitt's Creek, Tessa Bailey wanted her to have her own happy ending. First of all, I'm not really sure I think Alexis was too badly off at the end of the show, just because she wasn't shacked up with a man. Her ending seemed perfectly happy to me - not all HEAs need to involve a romantic partner. No matter what provided the initial inspiration, I'm glad Tessa Bailey wrote this book. I wasn't sure what to expect, but it's a really fun read. 

The Piper we meet at the start of the book really hasn't ever had to face any kind of financial hardship, but she also doesn't really have anyone she's close to, except her sister Hannah. The men she dates see her as a vacuous bimbo and she's never really had a romantic relationship last very long. Apart from her sister, she doesn't really have anyone to talk to or confide in, and she seems to move from party to party, with her rich stepfather's money bailing her out of any problem she might encounter. She documents her rather empty life on social media, being very conscious of her public image, and when her latest boyfriend dumps her, she wants to feel relevant, breaks into a hotel's rooftop pool (where she is joined by hundreds of people) and causes a scandal big enough that her stepfather might actually end up losing backers on his current project. He decides that enough is enough, she needs to learn how to live in the real world.

Piper's real dad was a fisherman from the Pacific Northwest, who drowned in a storm when she was only a toddler and her sister was a baby. Their mother has never really told them much about that time, as the memories are very painful to her. It turns out that their dad, as well as being a fisherman, owned a bar in his hometown, and Piper's stepdad is sending her there for three months to see if she can survive in the real world, with a limited budget, having to do her own cooking, cleaning and chores. Hannah, who actually has a job and mostly stays out of the limelight, refuses to let her sister be sent into exile by herself, and insists on coming with her.

The two women are woefully unprepared for what they find in the small town of Westport, Washington. Their father's bar turns out to be more of a shack, where the locals hang out and get drunk between fishing trips. The tiny apartment at the top where they're supposed to live is utterly filthy, full of dust, dirt, and vermin and there isn't even a separate bedroom, just a bunk bed in a corner of the main space. 

Brendan Taggert is a successful crab fisherman in Westport. His wife died seven years ago, but he still wears his wedding ring, as he feels her memory deserves it. Like the other locals, he's absolutely baffled when he sees the Bellinger sisters arrive, especially Piper, in her couture outfits, looking as out of place as a peacock would in a muddy field. Initially, Brendan underestimates Piper and her sister, not believing for a second that they'll be able to survive in the rough quarters available to them, and an incident where Piper causes a fire on one of her first nights, trying to cook for Hannah, seems to prove him right. 

Piper and Hannah are determined to prove their stepfather wrong, however, and since they're stuck in Westport, they do their best to make their run-down apartment cozy and livable. They also emerge on a project to turn the run-down shack into an actual bar, in part to prove to their stepdad that they can achieve something concrete, but later as a way to make a proper memorial for their dad. In Westport, they meet their grandmother for the first time, and their openness and kindness make them a lot of unlikely friends. Before he knows it, Brendan is completely smitten with Piper, who clearly returns his attraction. However, Piper isn't really intending to stay in Westport any longer than the three months her stepdad has demanded and is also very aware of her mother's warnings about falling for fishermen. Their mother never got over the heartbreak of losing their father and admonished her daughters before they left that fishermen are frequently very handsome and charismatic, but live very dangerous lives and might have much shorter life expectancies than other men. 

It won't surprise anyone that obviously Piper and Brendan find a way to make their relationship work, but the road there is paved with storms, misunderstandings, ultimatums, and some pretty spectacular "take me back" groveling. It also has a section that brought to mind one of my favourite articles from the much-missed The Toast ever: Things I've Learned About Heterosexual Female Desire from Decades of Reading. Brendan isn't stupid, and he doesn't quite build Piper a bed of oak and devotion, but he certainly takes on a major construction project for her, showing off his impressive muscles while building. 

There's clearly a follow-up romance teased between Hannah, Piper's music-loving sister, and Fox, Brendan's first mate, who clearly sleeps around a lot but I have no doubt will become staunchly monogamous if Hannah just gets over her very unrequited crush on the film director she works for (who is deeply unworthy of her, obviously). Based on this book, I'm already looking forward to the sequel. 

Judging a book by its cover: Another animated cover, but at least the little drawn people look mostly like the characters they're supposed to be. Romantic heroes with beards exist in romance, but seem to be few and far between, and you certainly don't see their beards frequently on the covers. So kudos for that, I guess. 

Crossposted on Cannonball Read.