10/10/2022

A haughty professor and a spirited gardener face off in this raunchy and enchanting rom-com from bestseller Bailey (My Killer Vacation). Small-town St. Helena, Calif., native Hallie Welch struggles to find her footing after her grandmother’s death, toiling for the prestigious gardening business she inherited from her grandmother and drinking at her grandmother’s favorite winery to stay grounded. When the estranged scion of local Vos Vineyards, Julian Vos, now a Stanford professor, returns to his family’s estate, Hallie grapples with an entirely different set of emotions, spurred by the memory of their almost-kiss back in high school. Hallie eagerly offers her services to refurbish the Vos Vineyards’ gardens, determined to reconnect with Julian. For Julian, however, his time at Vos Vineyards is strictly business; he’s there to finish writing his novel without interruption. But as the vibrant, chaotic Hallie enters his life, so too do a series of strange letters from a secret admirer, throwing his meticulous work schedule off course. Bailey delivers a second-chance romance with vigor and passion, despite the characters falling a bit too neatly and exaggeratedly into a familiar grumpy/sunshine dichotomy. The witty banter and gripping tension will make this a treat for the author’s many fans. Agent: Laura Bradford, Bradford Literary. (Feb.)

Tessa Bailey is the queen of rom-coms. Long may she reign!" — Julie Murphy, #1 New York Times bestselling author of A Merry Little Meet Cute

"This sexy opposites-attract romantic comedy features witty banter, steamy dialogue, and well-developed characters... Readers will devour Bailey’s latest (after Hook, Line, and Sinker) in one sitting, then go back to again and again to pick up on its intricate subtleties. Highly recommended." — Library Journal (starred review)

"With her latest addictively readable rom-com, the cheeky humor and full-blown sexiness that are organic elements in all of Bailey’s writing are in full, glorious bloom. The end result is a lushly sensual romance that brilliantly exploits the opposites-attract trope between a buttoned-up, by-the-book academic and a cheerfully chaotic Earth goddess-gardener for the maximum amount of love and laughter." — Booklist

"Romance readers awaiting Tessa Bailey's next will savor her playful secret-admirer romance..." — Popsugar

"A haughty professor and a spirited gardener face off in this raunchy and enchanting rom-com from bestseller Bailey... The witty banter and gripping tension will make this a treat for the author’s many fans." — Publishers Weekly

“Tessa disarms you with a laugh, heats things up past boiling, and then puts a squeeze inside your heart. The tenderness, vulnerability and heat I am always guaranteed with a Tessa Bailey book are the reasons she is one of my all-time favorite authors.”  — Sally Thorne

“Her voice feels as fresh and contemporary as a Netflix rom-com...  Bailey writes banter and rom-com scenarios with aplomb, but for those who like their romance on the spicier side, she’s also the Michelangelo of dirty talk. She wields filth like Da Vinci does a paintbrush, and there’s a lot to be said for an author who can fill such exchanges with all the requisite heat, enthusiastic consent, and yes, even humor, of such a scenario without veering into corny territory.” — Entertainment Weekly

“Tessa Bailey writes pure magic... heartwarming romance, laugh-out-loud humor, and scorching hot chemistry.” — Alexis Daria

“With her singular talent for writing romantic chemistry that is both sparkling sweet and explosively sexy, Tessa Bailey once again delivers... one of the genre’s very best.” — Kate Clayborn

“Bailey is a master at articulating emotion through both narrative prose and dialogue... Every page in this fabulous novel is pure romance gold.” — BookPage (Starred Review) on Hook, Line, and Sinker

“Bailey strikes rom-com gold in this outstanding tale... [She] is bound to earn new followers with love scenes hot enough to boil water and a hilariously naïve Schitt’s Creek-inspired protagonist who is clearly out of her depth.”  — Booklist (starred review) on It Happened One Summer

“A romantic comedy delight... It Happened One Summer will be your absolute jam.” — Christina Lauren

Tessa disarms you with a laugh, heats things up past boiling, and then puts a squeeze inside your heart.”

Tessa disarms you with a laugh, heats things up past boiling, and then puts a squeeze inside your heart.”

With her singular talent for writing romantic chemistry that is both sparkling sweet and explosively sexy, Tessa Bailey once again delivers... one of the genre’s very best.

Tessa Bailey writes pure magic... heartwarming romance, laugh-out-loud humor, and scorching hot chemistry.

A romantic comedy delight... It Happened One Summer will be your absolute jam.

Bailey strikes rom-com gold in this outstanding tale... [She] is bound to earn new followers with love scenes hot enough to boil water and a hilariously naïve Schitt’s Creek-inspired protagonist who is clearly out of her depth.” 

Her voice feels as fresh and contemporary as a Netflix rom-com...  Bailey writes banter and rom-com scenarios with aplomb, but for those who like their romance on the spicier side, she’s also the Michelangelo of dirty talk. She wields filth like Da Vinci does a paintbrush, and there’s a lot to be said for an author who can fill such exchanges with all the requisite heat, enthusiastic consent, and yes, even humor, of such a scenario without veering into corny territory.

Bailey is a master at articulating emotion through both narrative prose and dialogue... Every page in this fabulous novel is pure romance gold.

★ 11/01/2022

Hallie Welch fell for Julian Vos when she was a teenager. They almost kissed once, but then Julian graduated and moved away. Now Julian is back in their small town, and it's all Hallie can think about since she's revamping the gardens on the Vos estate. When she turns up at the guesthouse where Julian is staying, he doesn't remember her—at all. Julian is on a sabbatical writing a book, but ever since the gardener showed up, he can't concentrate on anything else. He has kept his life strictly organized and scheduled for years, but this curvy, dirty, complete mess of a woman is demolishing his perfect planning. And he finds that he doesn't mind so much. This sexy opposites-attract romantic comedy features witty banter, steamy dialogue, and well-developed characters. Backstories of anxiety, family drama, emotional abuse, and grief flesh out the novel, creating depth and character motivation. VERDICT Readers will devour Bailey's latest (after Hook, Line, and Sinker) in one sitting, then go back to again and again to pick up on its intricate subtleties. Highly recommended.—Heather Miller Cover

2022-11-16
A woman writes secret letters to the man she had a crush on in high school.

When her beloved grandmother died, Hallie Welch became the sole owner of Becca’s Blooms, a gardening and landscaping company in St. Helena, a small town in Napa Valley. Hallie is facing old anxieties about where she belongs without her grandmother’s anchoring presence. Rather than face her feelings, Hallie channels her grief through childish acts of sabotage and petty thievery against the new wine store threatening to put her grandmother’s best friend out of business. When Hallie hears that Julian Vos is back in town on sabbatical to write a novel, she’s determined to finally rid herself of the crush she’s been harboring for 15 years. Julian doesn’t remember Hallie, but he’s strongly attracted to her despite the fact that her special brand of chaos wreaks havoc on all his carefully timed schedules and plans. The winery owned by Julian’s family, Vos Vineyards, was once one of Napa’s preeminent wineries, but it's struggling to recover after wildfires almost destroyed the business. When Julian’s sister, who's dealing with untreated alcoholism, returns home as well, Julian realizes the depth of his family’s dysfunction. Bailey’s characteristic banter and instant chemistry between her main characters aren’t enough to salvage the novel, which feels entirely constructed of scenes and tropes but without any real plot. Characters do things—prank calls are made, letters are written, grapes are picked, speeches are given—but very little of it makes coherent sense given the way characters have been described. Of note, Julian suffers from anxiety and panic attacks, but they are used as a plot device. Readers looking for a nuanced exploration of how people live with and manage mental illnesses will not find it here.

Frenetic, fast-paced, and hollow.