"How did I look at her?" He was afraid to find out.
"Ah, son. Like a summer day showing up after a hundred years of winter."

As my first Tessa Bailey novel, I wasn't sure what to expect. Authors that are hyped within the book community can be hit or miss, especially when the bar is set too high prior to reading. In the case of HOOK, LINE, AND SINKER, I was pleasantly surprised to find that I enjoyed the novel, even if there were things that I didn't absolutely love about it.

At first, I was unsure of how to articulate my feelings about this book, as Hannah seemed a bit too perfect. I felt crazy for thinking that, especially when it's refreshing to read about a protagonist that isn't on the hot mess express. Still, I felt that the way that she handled all of Fox's emotional turbulence with grace to be...unrealistic? Unfair? I wasn't sure why I felt that way until I was reading other reviews and it clicked. Hannah allowed Fox to lean on her a bit too much while working through his issues, thus taking on the role of the supporting character that she was so determined to leave behind. I would have loved to see Fox take more ownership of his growth and Hannah to establish more boundaries, treating herself as the leading lady that she wanted to be.

That being said, Bailey delivered on the promised steam, and I truly enjoyed the dialogue and honesty between Hannah and Fox. I plan to go back and read IT HAPPENED ONE SUMMER. Thank you, Avon and NetGalley, for the complimentary copy in exchange for an honest review.

Love everything by Tessa Bailey!!! A wonderful follow-up to “It Happened one Summer”. This has to be one of my favorite reads of the year so far!

I loved It Happened One Summer, absolutely loved it, but in all honesty I loved Hook, Line, and Sinker more because to me these characters were so much more authentic. They both had put themselves in a specific box and while one was trying to climb out of it, the other one felt it that box was his destiny and man that just broke my heart. This book was a slow burn, like snail’s pace for a Tessa Bailey novel, but it was warranted for this couple and it worked. These characters got into my heart, seeped into my soul, and I felt everything they felt throughout this book. The fact they connected through music which is one of my loves from childhood on, made it even better. Watching them unravel their pasts and realize their worth, was a thing of beauty. Watching them go from acquaintances to friends to confidants to lovers was powerful. I loved Hook, Line, and Sinker and as much as I’ve loved a lot of what Tessa Bailey has written, I don’t think any of her books has touched me like this one.

Hannah Bellinger has lived her life as a side-kick, the girl nobody really notices because her big sister took up the spotlight and honestly she has always been okay with that, but she wants to make her dream come true of scoring a movie and feels that the next project she’s working on might be her best shot. So after she suggests they move the filming from Los Angeles to Westport, Washington where her sister now lives, she feels it is time to make her move and ask for what she wants. She just didn’t realize not only would she be asking for that in her professional life, but for her personal life as well.

Fox Thornton has been a ladies’ man since puberty, he’d always been told he was just like his dad and believed it to be true. Casual hookups far away from the town he lives so there is no complications, no regrets, no feelings. Somehow Hannah got under his skin when she was in Westport last year and for the last 6 months he hasn’t been able to get her off his mind; of course texting with her off and on since she left doesn’t help. Now she’s returning to work on a film and she’ll be staying in his home, but they are just friends and he knows Hannah is way too good for a man like him.

From the first chapter I was caught up in Hannah and Fox’s friendship and the way they opened up to each other. Hannah was really good at drawing Fox out and I loved that she SAW him, she knew there was more to him than anyone gave him credit for including her is she was being honest and the fact when she realized that it made her feel sick to her stomach made me love her even more. I was thrilled that Fox began to see himself in a new light because of her and even confronted those closest to him once he realized how their mixed signals made him feel.

A feel good, friends to lovers story that had heart, humor, and. loveable characters. This slow burn romance that was perfect for this couple, and I loved everything about Hook, Line, and Sinker.

I liked this only a little bit less than the first one, but i LOVED fox & hannah’s story from the get go. her passion for music was so fun to read about and was integrated into the plot so well. seeing him slowly break down his walls & reform his fuckboy ways was so fun. perfect summer read !!

4.5

I really enjoyed the story of Hannah and Fox. It was just so sincere and realistic.

What I didn't care for in 'It Happened One Summer' were the cringy sex scenes, and the last portion of the book. Without spoilers for the first book, even after so much growth for Piper, she was still depicted as not being able to handle feelings and/or conflict and how to have much needed conversations in those regards.

Those were absolutely not issues in Hook, Line, and Sinker. In fact, instead of being like her sister, Piper, in the first book ... Hannah is very forthcoming, and she's the one helping and encouraging Fox to grow. It's just so refreshing to see. It gets old seeing the women being the ones needing help. That's not how it is irl. We need these more realistic stories of men learning how to be vulnerable as well as helping to beat back societal norms and stereotypes.

Then you have the chemistry and tension between Hannah and Fox ... Talk about heat! It's perfection! I know I'm a sucker for friends to lovers, but they still have to be well done or I'll dnf them super quick.

The epilogue brought tears to my eyes and had me rounding up my rating.

I am so very happy I gave this book a chance.

Thank you NetGalley and Avon Books for the digital arc!

I absolutely loved this book. The banter and the way the author made it so the main characters said what they meant. It was so refreshing that they didn't spend half the book with misunderstandings.

This was too much fun. Tessa Bailey’s books are either a hit or a miss for me, but this was such a fun sequel/companion. I’m excited to read more from Tessa Bailey because her characterization is so lovely and I just love the romance plots she comes up with.

In many ways, I was the ideal reader for HOOK, LINE, AND SINKER (Avon, 385 pp., paper, $15.99), Tessa Bailey’s friends-to-lovers story about a crab-boat fisherman and a music-loving film production assistant. I related to Hannah Bellinger’s fear that she’s a supporting cast member in her own life story; I love a capable hero and was intrigued by Fox Thornton’s anxieties about taking on the role of captain.

But this book keeps insisting there are two kinds of people, the male ones and the female ones. Men: big, strong, dumb and horny. Women: small, soft, mysterious and pure. And perhaps I should have realized this boded poorly and bailed out in Chapter 3, where our hero is described as “the maestro of feminine wetness” and a “masculinity maelstrom.” (A malestrom?) Bailey’s reputation is built on being “the Michelangelo of dirty talk,” but I wasn’t expecting her work to sound quite so baroque. To hear a 21st-century woman refer to her anatomy as her “femininity” midthrust is jarring, a throwback to the tortured circumlocutions of bodice-rippers past.

If not for this tendency, Bailey would have made my auto-buy list, alongside Kate Clayborn and Lucy Parker. Her voice is otherwise lively and evocative. But that one repeated sour note threw me out of the story so often that it started to feel actively hostile to me as a queer reader. Especially since Fox’s arc boils down to his being “wedged into a category before he even knew what was happening” — framing we see in plenty of queer and trans stories. Bailey uses the language of sexual marginalization and shame to talk about how hard it is to be a handsome, straight, white, cisgender man with a series of willing partners and access to reliable contraception. A plot point about his mother’s supplying him money for condoms in high school is treated as one origin of his trauma — because having had a lot of safe, consensual sex is something this book thinks has tainted Fox. It’s a stunningly sex-negative attitude for a supposedly steamy romance.

My objection is not that the lead characters themselves are straight and cis, it is that the imagination of this book fails to account not only for L.G.B.T.Q. characters but also for L.G.B.T.Q. readers.

I am not the word police, telling you what’s permissible. I am just here to illuminate the effect of an author’s choice of language. And Bailey’s choices made this reviewer feel, in a word, lonely.

Tessa Bailey, I love you.

For so long, I have heard nothing but good things about It Happened One Summer and Hook, Line, and Sinker, but unlike other books that have a lot of hype, these two books absolutely lived up to their reputation. Tessa Bailey is now an auto-buy author for me.

The whole beginning and middle of the book had me on cloud nine. I've been in a romance rut for a little, and Tessa Bailey grabbed me and shoved me out of it in the best way possible. I liked that there wasn't a lot of build up to Hannah and Fox realizing they both had feelings for each other, and the pass off between their viewpoints never felt awkward. I loved getting to see both of their perspectives. I also love that Tessa Bailey for the most part doesn't utilize the miscommunication trope (and seeing how she avoids it makes me think that no author should ever use it -- it makes the reading experience so much better in my opinion). Despite how much I enjoyed the experience of reading the book, I was taken out of it by how dragged on the end realization for Fox was. I didn't like that it seemed like Hannah was Fox's therapist and the emotional labor she put in wasn't reciprocated in the same way by Fox. (Say it with me and everyone who has ever said this before: Women are not rehabilitation centers for men.) I tried to keep an open mind about how much one-sidedness is okay, but it went a little far for my personal taste and lost me at the end. BUT I really did enjoy reading the book and would give it a 3.5/5. The epilogue also completely got me. I am a complete sucker for a happy ending like that. Overall, a good book (though It Happened One Summer is going to keep its place as my favorite Tessa Bailey book), and I wish I could visit Westport right now.

This book definitely felt like a second act, much more so than the sequel romances in these sorts of series often are. While normally I’d say you could read these sorts of series out of order, I really wouldn’t recommend it here, as it certainly feels way more interconnected than other romance series, and the understanding of the setting does strongly come from the first book rather than this one. I think this may have also contributed a bit to why I didn’t like this book quite as much as the first, since we didn’t really have as much of a strong connection to the town and the setting itself, since that groundwork was already done. And while it hadn’t been that long since I’d read the first book, it’d been long enough that I never really got that connection back from just reading this book.

Additionally, since you lose a lot of the scene set-up, more space is left for the actual relationship and character building. Normally, this is a fantastic thing, as it allows room for you to get more attached to the characters and get a stronger feel for the relationship, but this book almost suffered for it. Instead of taking the space to add more nuance, we instead see the same thoughts and arguments rehashed over and over again, and while sometimes progress is made, it’s really frustrating. The same string of thoughts have to be had 10 times in a section before that little smidge of progress is made, and it honestly got really tiring. It felt like I was hearing the same thing over and over again, and in this book where the main issues stopping the relationship are largely self-imposed (or require both characters to just take the step and try), it doesn’t feel productive to run in circles so much before that step is finally taken. It was almost too realistic, instead of enjoyable as a romance to read. I also just didn’t feel for the pairing as strongly as I did for the first book, which was unfortunate because I did really like these two as side characters!

Overall, this was still a fun book though, and I can definitely see myself reading more by this author in the future! This one just wasn’t entirely for me, unfortunately, though I can see it still working for many!

This is a VERY cute book that I enjoyed, but wouldn’t recommend to anyone who isn’t my mom. Or her friends. It’s super sweet, but there’s nothing groundbreaking here.

I love the way Tessa Bailey writes her characters - lifelike and quirky but not over-the-top and annoying. Just right. Fox and Hannah are no exception, and it was a joy to live in their world for a while and escape the real one. Great writing, interesting plot lines and ideas, fun supporting cast.

I love Tessa Bailey so with no surprise I love this book! Her stories always bring me in and this one was no exception.

Holy moly, Tessa Bailey knows how to write chemistry between two romantic leads! The tension in this was off the charts amazing - I couldn't wait for the main couple to get together. And I suddenly find myself very interested in visiting a fishing village in the Pacific Northwest... :) The sexy scenes were so well written - give me a kiss in the rain against a brick wall, and I'm a goner! Now I need to go back and read book one!

Another fun read from Tessa Bailey with lots of laughs and spice. I really enjoyed this one. While I preferred Piper's story, this was still a worthy addition to the series and a must read. ⭐⭐⭐⭐

I really wanted to like Hook, Line, and Sinker... does that count for something?

I usually enjoy Tessa Bailey's book (they are SO freaking hot), and I was looking forward to this sequel story in the Bellinger Sisters series, but I have to say, I found this book to be a bit... boring. I wanted more, that's for sure.

I'm a sucker for a nerdy girl/reformed rake story, but I think the issues started for me when a lot of the background work for their relationship started off page in text conversations. I'm not a huge fan of friends-to-lovers stories, mostly because there is already intimacy there and I think the readers miss out on a lot of relationship development. Everything in this book felt a bit forced, a bit contrived.

I really felt like nothing happened for this whole story. There was some contrived conflict, and though I'm a fan of a slow burn, these two took FOREVER to get together. I mean, the relationship was cute and the plot was fine, but nothing made me excited.

A bit underwhelming, but a pleasant read nevertheless.

*Copy provided in exchange for an honest review*

This book was fun. Tessa Bailey is an auto-buy for me and her books never disappoint. If you love a delightful, sweet, vulnerable friends to lover love, this book is IT! Don't wait any longer. Read it now!

This book was so steamy. It's an absolutely hot romance novel. The start of the romance between the two characters was also adorable. Another hit from Tessa Bailey!

The romance here just didn’t do it for me. It felt like forced instalove and I found both characters unlikable at best. On the whole I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone other than fans of the author/series.

I loved this romance. I enjoyed seeing the characters grow as I read their love story. I can't wait to read the first book. I've read it's even better than this one. I hope she writes a third.