A Tessa Bailey rom-com set in California wine country? Yes, please!
Read This: Secretly Yours by Tessa Bailey, the first book in Bailey's new A Vine Mess series set in the heart of California's wine country.
Julian Vos is a Stanford professor on sabbatical and staying at his family's vineyard. Julian deals with his anxiety by living a very organized and orderly life, living each day with a plan. Hallie, reeling from the loss of her grandmother, who was her anchor, is his exact opposite. She's a gardener who is more than just messy from digging in the literal dirt. She's a beautiful mess, chaotic, spontaneous, and SO not a planner. She's also harbored a secret crush on Julian since high school when they nearly kissed, and 15 years later, he's only more attractive to her. So when Julian's mother hires her to do landscaping around the vineyard, sparks fly, but can these two total opposites find common ground, especially after a series of secret admirer letters Hallie sent Julian after a drunken girls' night out complicates matters?
This is a cute and spicy opposites-attract rom-com with a romantic setting, a sunny, passionate FMC, and a buttoned-up (but dirty-talking) cinnamon roll of an MMC. Bailey writes these two with dual POV secret pining and an irresistible attraction. It's a fun read but Bailey adds some realness in a light-hearted way by touching on themes of grief, mental health, acceptance, self-forgiveness, and body positivity.
The next book in the series will feature Julian's sister, Natalie, and a marriage of convenience trope. After meeting Natalie in this book, I am here for it!
Thank you to NetGalley and Avon and Harper Voyager for the gifted ARC! I enjoyed it!
And Steep: Garnet Violet Wine Wellness tea from California-based www.clubmagichour.com An herbal with berries and florals and a wine grape flavor extract, this flavor profile is delicious and uniquely perfect for this book!
Synopsis
From #1 New York Times bestselling author and TikTok favorite Tessa Bailey comes a steamy new rom-com about a starchy professor and the bubbly neighbor he clashes with at every turn...
Hallie Welch fell hard for Julian Vos at fourteen, after they almost kissed in the dark vineyards of his family’s winery. Now the prodigal hottie has returned to their small Napa town. When Hallie is hired to revamp the gardens on the Vos estate, she wonders if she’ll finally get that smooch. But the grumpy professor isn’t the teenager she remembers and their polar opposite personalities clash spectacularly. One wine-fueled girls’ night later, Hallie can’t shake the sense that she did something reckless—and then she remembers the drunken secret admirer letter she left for Julian. Oh shit.
On sabbatical from his ivy league job, Julian plans write a novel. But having Hallie gardening right outside his window is the ultimate distraction. She’s eccentric, chronically late, often literally covered in dirt—and so unbelievably beautiful, he can’t focus on anything else. Until he finds an anonymous letter sent by a woman from his past. Even as Julian wonders about this admirer, he’s sucked further into Hallie’s orbit. Like the flowers she plants all over town, Hallie is a burst of color in Julian’s grey-scale life. For a man who irons his socks and runs on tight schedules, her sunny chaotic energy makes zero sense. But there’s something so familiar about her... and her very presence is turning his world upside down.
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