Good book about two people who experience significant crises in their lives, and with each other's help, find their way to new beginnings. The story opens as Poppy, a New York City stylist to the rich and famous, arrives in New Orleans for her best friend's wedding. The timing is perfect, as Poppy desperately needs to get away. After finding her fiancé in bed with her intern, Poppy had a very public meltdown, which ended up splashed all over social media. Her image is destroyed, and she needs to find a way to fix it. Hiding out in New Orleans for a couple of weeks will give Poppy the time to do so. However, she isn't really in much of a party mood, and the arrival of the groom's bad boy brother is one more irritation.

Brandon is the black sheep of his family. While his brother followed their father into the law, Brandon's interest lay in boat-building. After a massive blow-up with his father, Brandon and his best friend Jeb set out on their own. Brandon hasn't spoken to his parents in ten years, though he has remained in touch with his brother, Henry. He's not about to miss Henry's wedding and the hoopla before it, though he isn't in much of a mood to party. His partner Jeb has disappeared, taking all of the business's money with him. He doesn't want to believe it, but the facts are hard to deny. The last thing he wants to deal with is a stuck-up Yankee.

I liked the first meeting between Poppy and Brandon. He pulls up to his brother's dock in an obnoxiously loud airboat, and Poppy looks at him like he's pond scum. But there is no doubt about the sparks that fly between them. Brandon is a charming flirt, and he immediately lays it on thick with Poppy, who wants nothing to do with him or any other man right now. There's also a pretty big gentlemanly streak in him, and Brandon comes to her rescue when she has a panic attack. I thought she could have been a little more appreciative, but she was also fighting her attraction.

I enjoyed the development of the relationship between Brandon and Poppy. A hurricane-like storm brings them together as Brandon rescues her from a dangerous flooding situation. As they ride out the storm together, the attraction between them continues to grow. Both try to resist, as neither wants a relationship, thanks to the current upheaval in their lives. Instead, they form an unexpected friendship, discovering that they have more in common than they knew. I loved how their first impressions of each other changed as they got to know each other. I ached for Poppy, whose run of bad luck left her with some insecurities. Brandon is more sensitive than I expected at first, and it isn't long before he finds ways to show Poppy what an amazing woman she is. Brandon also faces a situation he doesn't feel prepared for, and this time it's Poppy who comes to the rescue. I had a grand time watching her prep Brandon for his big meeting.

All the while, the attraction between Brandon and Poppy continued to simmer until they couldn't resist any longer. Each one is clear that they don't want anything serious and decide to have fun together. But as Poppy builds Brandon up for his meeting, he discovers that he wants more than just her professional attention and a short-term affair. This freaks him out a bit, especially since he doesn't feel that he's in a place to do anything about it. Meanwhile, Poppy makes significant progress reinventing herself and her brand but doesn't know how to tell Brandon that she plans to relocate to New Orleans. After a blow-up where Brandon says some bone-headed things, both of them have some soul-searching to do before either is ready to look at a future together. I liked the ending. Both Brandon and Poppy show some real growth, and I loved Brandon's big moment.

The drama regarding the wedding between Henry and Poppy's friend, Sonja, added some extra tension to the story. I liked both Henry and Sonja, who genuinely appear to love each other. However, outside forces create an untenable situation, and Sonja doesn't handle it well. Their issues are left hanging, so I can't wait to read the next book in the series to see how that turns out. Brandon's troubles with his partner, Jeb, are also glossed over at the end, leaving that open for the third book.

I enjoyed the detailed descriptions of New Orleans, from the bayous to the little details about the city itself. I especially liked the scene set at Café du Monde, as it brought back fond memories of my visit there. I also liked the mentions of post-Katrina issues, from the loss of jobs to the way people helped each other. I liked Poppy's reminisces of her time volunteering and the impact it had on her life.

Review by Amber for Love Romance Books

When Poppy has a bad breakup, she grabs her best friend Sonja’s New Orleans wedding as a chance to get away from the drama in New York City. Even though she is a stylist, she is planning to enjoy the wedding festivities. Then she meets the groom’s brother, Brandon, when he arrives at the engagement party in a loud boat. She thinks is an obnoxious jerk, but when he saves her from a disastrous night out she is forced to reevaluate her initial opinion. In addition, she cannot deny the sizzling chemistry they share. The only thing is that she has enough complications in her life already. She is not sure if she wants to add sex into the mix.



I would give this book 3 stars. I liked the overall premise, but the story was hard to get into. The second half of the book was better than the first, and I liked that it was set in New Orleans. I was asked by the author for an honest review.

Review by Leah for Love Romance Books Blog

I was asked by the author for an honest review.

3.5 Stars!

The story of two wounded souls and how they healed each other. Poppy is our main female character and she's been through some stuff recently that not only shook up her world, but brought it crashing down. Now she's in New Orleans to wait out the storm still unleashing hell in New York. Here she meets her best friend's fiancé's sexy as all get out brother. Brandon "Gus" is a marshmallow, but no one else can see it except for Poppy. Unfortunately, they don't get off on the right foot.

I loved how well the characters were written and the interactions between Poppy and Brandon were oftentimes hilarious. The sexual tension between them could've been cut with a knife! The strength shown in Poppy's character was immense to have gone through what she did. I would've liked the author to have backed the book up to just before Poppy's "breakdown". It's alluded to often, but he details are not included. I'm also surprised/confused how things when with Brandon's business partner at the end of the book. All-in-all, a cute book and a fun read.

Poppy and Brandon somehow hit all the right notes for me. Both were in the middle of professional crises and had to figure out a way to rely on each other and themselves in the middle of a natural disaster and in love.

on paper this book has it all. the perfect location. the city girl meets southern boy/opposites attract conceit. and don't get me wrong, fully dressed is enjoyable. it's just that for most of the book i thought maybe i was missing something?

the book feels very much like the second book in a series. like we should already know the lead characters somewhat because we've gotten snippets of their stories in an earlier book. except fully dressed is the start of the series.

and then poppy and brandon also have family drama and business drama and relationship drama, and they each also have an alternate name, poppy is also amber and brandon is gus and at a certain point it's almost a bit too much. i don't know.

as a contemporary, opposites attract love story, fully dressed totally works. i really liked both poppy and brandon. but part of me also wonders if this book is really where this series was meant to start. and i also wonder at some of the editorial choices made during certain scenes in the book, because there were so many times poppy and brandon would be having a seemingly normal flirtatious conversation and then it would go off the rails spectacularly and i wasn't always sure why. like maybe i missed something? i also didn't love the business subplots for either of these characters, they already had enough going on, their financial woes didn't really interest me or make their story more compelling. they had enough family drama for that.

**fully dressed will publish on march 13, 2018. i received an advance reader copy courtesy of netgalley/kensington books (lyrical caress) in exchange for my honest review.

Poppy Kaminski is running away. When your fiancé dumps you for your twenty-one-year-old intern (five months pregnant) and she then tries to claim all your designs for herself, sometimes you can’t quite help a public meltdown. When it goes viral on Twitter and Instagram, though, it’s time to get the hell out of Dodge - or in this case, New York. Her best friend’s wedding in New Orleans provides the perfect excuse to flee the scene of the crime.

Poppy certainly isn’t looking for any entanglements, but from the first moment, there are sparks flying between her and Brandon Boudreaux. The bad boy of his family, Brandon’s got issues of his own - like a missing best friend and the fifteen million dollars he absconded with. The last thing he needs is a New York socialite clipping all over his business in her too-high heels.

There were parts of this book I really enjoyed - the banter between Poppy and Brandon was wonderful, if a bit razor-sharp at times between two souls who were obviously both hurting. Brandon had a couple of moments of being a complete dick, but they were spur-of-the-moment and to me not complete deal-breakers. The sex scenes were really hot and the descriptions of New Orleans and surrounds well done.

Where things fell down is that, weirdly, all the best scenes seemed to be missing. I’d have loved to see Poppy’s meltdown and the aftermath, but instead, we were only told about it with minimal details. Frankly, I think the story should have started there, rather than with Poppy’s rather anticlimatic arrival in New Orleans. While Brandon’s business partner turned up, the fifteen million dollars didn’t - and I still have absolutely no clue where it went or what he was doing about getting it back. I started wondering if maybe this was part of a series and I’d missed earlier books, but checking on Amazon, this is the first in a new series.

This could have been really good, but it feels as though it’s been cut to fit a word count and the story’s continuity has suffered in the process. I dithered between two and three stars, but at the end of the day, I’m really not interested in reading the rest of the series, so I think I’m going to have to settle on two.

2.5☆
This is my first book by Geri Krotow.

What I liked:
The writing style
Part of a series: The Bayou Bachelors
Standalone
HEA

What I didn't like:
Poppy

I look forward to reading the other books in this series.

Geri Krotow is a new-to-me author, but I see she has quite the library. Not tons of books, but a significant amount. I’m surprised this is my first time delving into her work.

As much as I enjoyed the storyline and characters, I have mixed feelings on this one. It felt a bit choppy. Now, that could partially be blamed on the fact that I read an ARC. Yet I don’t think it being an ARC is wholly to blame. I just couldn’t fully immerse myself in the bayou along with Poppy and Brandon until about halfway through.

Part of the issue could also be that I felt as though I was missing part of the story. As I mentioned before, I enjoyed the characters. In fact, I liked both the hero and heroine quite a lot. Poppy has had some bad luck but is determined to land on her feet. Plus, she’s in New Orleans for her best friend’s wedding and she doesn’t want anything to distract from the bride. Same but different for Brandon. He’s having an extremely bad run of luck, but he’s a great guy and doesn’t want to disrupt his brother’s wedding. The chemistry between Poppy and Brandon is definitely there. And when we do find out some of the what each of them has gone through I physically ached for them. As much as I don’t mind an author being somewhat vague about a past event as long as the reader gets the gist of what the character is currently going through, I didn’t feel I fully could understand Poppy’s predicament. Sure, I got the main idea about what was done to her. But what did she do at that fateful event that made her such a pariah and fodder for the gossips? What made her so infamous that people in Louisiana had heard (and talked about) her sad story. They all knew, but the reader did not.

I had similar issues with feeling like I was missing part of Brandon’s story, but only toward the end. I can only assume some of his issues are going to be revisited in later books in this series. Especially because his brother’s portion of this story is definitely left up in the air. I wasn’t left hanging in the way a real cliffhanger would leave one, but there is some unfinished business for sure.

The emotions this author evoked will have me reading more of her work. I really did enjoy with story as a whole, there was just a small puzzle piece missing for me.

When Poppy and Brandon meet, they are both at an impasse in their respective careers. But that doesn’t stop the sparks from flying between them both from their chemistry and the ribbing.
Though they both are not interested in getting involved with anyone at this point, being stranded together with the storm blowing outside might make them change their mind.
I enjoyed Fully dressed. The story interesting, with them both going through tough financial times, and the characters were well developed. I specially liked the fact that all of Brandon’s problems didn’t vanish overnight towards the end of the book, making it that much more real. I would like to know what happened with Henry and Sonja, hopefully the next book would cover that.

What a solid piece of writing. I enjoyed learning about the Boudreaux family and look forward to reading more. Poppy is taking a break from her life in NYC and doesn't expected to find love. Brandon simply wants to be left alone. But along comes cupid and bam, you get a solid romance. Hot in all the right places. Good characters and dialogue kept the book moving along. Great!

I received an arc from Netgalley. I loved the story between Brandon and Poppi. They really complimented each other and developed a deep relationship through the book. Some may think their connection or knowing they were made for each other was too quick but I think it worked in this story.

I do want to find out what happens between Sonja and Henry and I would also like to see the parent relationship somehow restored. The parents need to come around to loving who their children love and not commanding all aspects of their children’s lives.