Even better than the first in the series. I love a marriage of convenience and it's done exceptionally well here.

Natalie Vos has returned home to the family winery after losing her job and fiancé in New York City. Now she's desperate to get her trust fund so she strikes up a deal with August for a fake marriage. Except August has always been crazy about Natalie.

This book is funny and very sexy. Natalie and August have terrific banter. It was fun to watch them work together while bickering all the time.

Grief and survivor's guilt are prominent throughout the story. It's a beautiful mix of light and heavy. Highly recommend, read Secretly Yours first.

4.5 ⭐️

Don’t let this cartoon cover fool you. Tessa Bailey knows how to write the spice.

August is a ex SEAL who is failing out starting a winery near Napa. Natalie is a failed finance advisor who has come home to lock her wounds. She needs her trust fund to start over and August needs a loan to build his winery. The only way is for them to get married.

This is actually my first Tessa Bailey book and I am now hooked. I have many sitting on my shelf that are now a top priority.

She knows how to write some spicy books, that also make you feel good with some good plot thrown it. We love a cutest hallmark happy ending with these two.

Tessa Bailey writes these quiet manly men but in the bedroom they speak all the dirty words and I love it!!

Thank you NetGalley and Harper / Avon Books for giving me a chance to read and review.

Unfortunately Yours - Tessa Bailey
Format: e-ARC
Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️/5

"A down-on-her-luck Napa heiress suggests a mutually beneficial marriage of convenience to a man she can't stand... only to discover there's a fine line between love and hate."

Leave it to Tessa Bailey to sweep me off my feet once again! I could not put this one down. I haven't read the first book in this series, but I immediately bought it after reading this one.

Give me a fake marriage to a hulking teddy bear any day. The hatred turned love between Natalie and August was everything I didn't know I needed. In true Tessa Bailey fashion, the spiciness is real. If you can't handle the heat, do not open this book.

If you're looking to devour a book, this is the one for you!

𝘛𝘩𝘢𝘯𝘬 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘵𝘰 Avon, Harper Voyager, 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘕𝘦𝘵𝘨𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘦𝘺 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘦-𝘈𝘙𝘊 𝘪𝘯 𝘦𝘹𝘤𝘩𝘢𝘯𝘨𝘦 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘢𝘯 𝘩𝘰𝘯𝘦𝘴𝘵 𝘳𝘦𝘷𝘪𝘦𝘸.

Full disclosure, this isn't my favorite of Tessa Bailey's worlds. That said, Natalie was my favorite character in Secretly Yours and I was excited to see her story. Natalie and August have good banter and steamy attraction, but the rationale for them to be "enemies" felt insubstantial making some of the arguments and issues seem silly.

I received this book as an Advance Reader’s Copy from NetGalley. I was honestly very disappointed by the story. This is not to say I wasn’t surprised. I didn’t absolutely love the duo’s first book “Secretly Your’s,” so my expectations were fairly low. There were a couple things I couldn’t get past. The first being the dreaded miscommunication trope. This story was littered with miscommunication in almost every chapter. It was almost laughable at how many times August had the internal monologue of “Oh my gosh I’m going to lose her because I didn’t communicate, I lied, or I wasn’t using common sense.” It was painful to read. Secondly, I felt like the relationship between August and Natalie was very rushed and underdeveloped. Although this couple was first introduced in “Secretly Your’s” it felt like there wasn’t enough foundation or growth. Lastly, I believe the SEAL aspect of the storyline was half-baked. There wasn’t enough care in how they talked about PTSD in veterans and all the trauma that comes with serving. Instead we got a few chapters of August talking about his deceased military friend and his protectiveness of Natalie. But it didn’t seem like there was an accurate depiction of a veteran. All in all, I did not enjoy this book.

This was another banger! Loved this storyline :) so happy that Natalie and August got their own book and that little hint at the end of the first one in the series. It was done well and had a great amount of steaminess!

Book 2 is here and I scored an ARC!! Ahh!!! I loved the first one and was so excited to dive right into this one.

To put it mildly, Natalie and August hate each other. Natalie, a vineyard heiress, is back in town after screwing up a major deal at her firm in NYC. August is in Napa trying to start his own vineyard/wine, however he completely sucks at it. When Natalie figures out she needs to be married to receive her inheritance, her and August strike a deal and come up with a plan that serves them both; get married, get the money, get divorced. And DONT fall in love.

Not sure if this opinion is popular or unpopular, but I actually liked this one better than the first one. Granted it was focused on different characters, but I really felt like I connected to them more!! And I’m a true sucker for an enemies to lovers trope.

As always, Tessa Bailey is our rom-com queen and can do no wrong!!!

Rating: 4.5/5 stars
Spice rating: 🌶️ 🌶️ (out of 3)
Tropes: enemies to lovers; marriage of convenience.

Yesss Tessa Bailey brings the charm and the spice in Unfortunately Yours and I was enamored the entire time. Marriage of convenience romances are my favorite when they are done well and this one hit all the right notes. Highly recommend!

I mean, this was better than the first one. It's a marriage of convenience book but they don't get married until almost 50% through the book. After they get married the book takes place over something like 7 days. It felt like I was being told that they changed without being shown that they've changed.

I received an arc through netgalley.

4.8/5 ☆
y'all know i am a sucker for marriage of convenience, but these characters' complexes are one of my favorites! natalie and august have giggly, screaming-in-your-pillow chemistry from the beginning and just reading about them throughout the whole book, it's so easy to just fall in love with them alongside their own feelings. there's just something about two people who claim they hate each other, but their actions and words say something else!!! you watch two rivals become an absolute dream team and natalie and august as individuals held such vulnerability, as well as pride, and seeing them work through their conflicts, i really enjoyed that also. overall, i think that this was such a great casual read, especially for the spring and i loved it!
❥ thank you netgalley and avon/harper voyager for the arc!

I absolutely LOVED this book! Tessa Bailey has done it again! I thought I already LOVED Tessa Bailey but I must have only liked her before because after these books, I ADORE her!
Unfortunately Yours, a sequel/addition to the Vine Mess duology, follows Natalie (the sister of Julien (from Secretly Yours) and August, an ex-Navy SEAL (who, alongside Natalie, is introduced in Secretly Yours). This book follows up right after the events of Secretly Yours, so I definitely think it's best to read these together! Natalie is ready to get her life back on track and go back to New York but she doesn't have enough money...she needs access to her trust fund but there's some problems. She has to be employed and MARRIED in order for her trust to be released to her. August has given up on his winery... he doesn't think he'll ever seem to make a good wine and achieve his friend's dream, it's time to hang up his "kiss the vintner" apron because he has been turned down for a small business loan and needs funds. When Natalie proposes (hehe ironic choice of words) that August and her get married out of connivence so that she can get her trust fund and the banker who rejected August will be swayed by August's new family connections...

This book was SO great! I am a sucker for enemies to lovers but this was a bit of a non-traditional enemies to lovers book! Instead of the audience knowing that they hate each other and then start to like each other, when reading Unfortunately Yours, the audience KNOWS that Natalie and August like each other/are attracted to each other, there just always seem to be an issue in communication/translation of their feelings! I also really loved the banter! Not only was it witty banter (which is the BEST) BUT it also was funny and snarky enough that I actually was laughing out loud! Also, I enjoyed the fact that we get to see Hallie and Julien interact again and with Natalie and August because to be honest I feel like these books were so good, they are gonna give me a book hangover and I just want more Hallie, Julien, Natalie, and August!

There are so many attractive attributions of this book: enemies to lovers (unique!), marriage of convenience, banter, nicknames, SPICE, protective MMC, and just overall a really sweet story! I love that both Natalie and August have things going on, like Natalie has some resentment towards her family for being pushed away and ignored and August has some grief that he has to deal with, but together, they are stronger and can overcome it all! I gave this book 5 stars! I really enjoyed it! One of the best contemporary romances I've read this year!

okay this one is absolutely amazing. Tessa Bailey just does not miss. release date is June 6, so go put it on your calendars & TBRs now.

started & finished today. I literally don’t think I put it down once. the banter and relationship between these characters hit in all the right ways.

this was one of my most anticipated releases for the year & it lived up to that. thank you again to @avonbooks & @harpercollins for the ARC & finished copy of this book.

Unfortunately Yours has become my favorite fake marriage book of all time. Tessa Bailey knows how to make a romcom have all the feelings as well. This has been ordered for our library and I would highly recommend this book

I absolutely adored this book. It is an enemies to lovers/arranged marriage novel. The banter and jabs are hilarious, and the chemistry is off the charts hot. Their behavior reminds me of a boy pulling a girls pig tails. Now add in some wine making and a cranky cat and you have a hilarious romantic novel. I absolutely recommend this book for anyone looking for something a little quirky, a lot funny, and full of charm.

So spicy, so sweet, and so gosh darn hilarious! These are the reasons I love reading Tessa Bailey and Unfortunately Yours does not disappoint. This had the witty banter and sexual chemistry of RomCom dreams. After following her TikTok videos through the writing process for Unfortunately Yours I knew this was one I had to read, and it was even better than advertised.

August Cates 🥵🔥. August is a retired Navy SEAL and Natalie s a former Wall Street finance girl a little lost in love back in her hometown. To get her trust fund, she needs to be married. While this starts as a marriage of convenience, they quickly realize their feelings for each other. August deals with grief as he attempts at making wine to honor his best friends and meets Natalie along the way. The mouth on that man 🔥🔥 & the banter was too tier.

Thank you NetGalley for eARC in exchange for an honest review

🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️
💜 This book is beautiful. It is perfection. This might be my favorite Tessa Bailey book now! Honestly!
💜 This picks up where Secretly Yours stops, and shows the love story between Natalie and August, which started in the first book when they were side characters. The first book was so good but this one was even better!
💜 This kind of enemies to lovers is probably my favorite. Like their fighting even made me smile so hard or giggle. It was verbal sparring in the best way possible. They loved to get other each other's skin and give each other a hard time, but if anyone or anything hurt the other, they lose it. 🥵 I was absolutely feral for these two!
💜 I loved Natalie. At first she just seemed like kind of stuck up but she isn't at all. She's just so hurt and does what she can to protect herself. I related to her sensitive soul and her hurt so much. I've felt the way she has many times and it hit so close to home for me. Natalie is my girl!
💜 August fucking Cates. This man.... 🥵 I mean, hot as hell, yes, but my favorite part about him? He is absolutely adorable. The way from the beginning he was always bothered by literally any little thing that could even cause Natalie to not smile, but still be completely oblivious to have feelings for her. Everything he said basically was either funny or adorablely endearing. He's a protector through and through. A retired Navy SEAL, and he would do anything for the people (or cat) he cares about. I loved watching him learn Natalie and learn to not try to do everything alone. He's honestly husband goals and like someone please tell me where I can get an August Cates PLEASE 🥺
💜 The spice was also so so good! The sexual tension between them was OFF THE CHARTS! August knows what he's doing and I loved every moment of it!
💜 Their love story was so absolutely beautiful to me. I was enthralled by every page. I loved seeing every small development in their relationship, every forward movement in their growth. It was touching that at the end I teared up, and then by the end of the epilogue, I was full on crying happy tear! 😭 That means a lot because I don't cry often while reading and most of the time it's sad tears, rarely EVER happy tears. So it's a big deal! I don't want to spoil anything, but I loved the epilogue so much and August did what I thought he was going do at the end and that really tipped me over the edge 🥺🥰😍😭
💜 If I could give this book more than 5 stars, I would! Tessa Bailey truly knocked it out of the park with this one! I can't wait to see what else she has in store for us!
💜 Thank you to Avon Books for this arc in exchange for my honest review!

The romance between Natalie Vos and August Cates was teased in the first book of this series so I was very excited to get my hands on an advanced copy.

Having read (I think) five of Tessa Bailey's books now, I officially think she is the spicier, millennial Nora Roberts. I mean this as the most sincere compliment. She's pumping out books like crazy, but her voice is consistent and she writes really compelling characters. Her books are fun and readable. Her characters are funny and imperfect. Her dialogue is genuinely hilarious. You can tell she genuinely loves the romance genre and understands what readers want, both in pacing and in character development. She loves building a series around a compelling family (the Vos family is the best part of this series to me). Her books remind me of being in middle school sneaking my Nora Roberts mass market paperbacks into my room.

Enemies to loves and marriage of convenience are two of my top tier tropes, and both of them are at play in this book. August and Natalie must get married for *romance reasons,* even though they have a very salty dynamic initially. Natalie is part of an old money family and established vineyard and when we meet August, he is unsuccessfully building a vineyard of his own. Sometimes enemies to lovers can be tough for me because one of the characters is irredeemably cruel, but that's not at play here. It's obvious they have underlying sparks the whole time (and like Tessa Bailey explains in her foreword, he's in love with her the whole time).

I enjoyed this book. The plot sang for me more than the first one in the series and I really enjoyed Natalie as a character. August was cool but no Julian Vos, in my opinion. Despite that, these two had great chemistry.

As a brief and unimportant thing--I don't mind an illustrated cover, but the ones for this series look pretty amateurish for a book of this scale. I wish they were more in the style of whoever is creating the book covers for the recent Olivia Dade books (illustrated, but with more detail and passion depicted). Most of Tessa Bailey's covers do NOT adequately represent the adult nature of the story, haha.

Thanks to NetGalley, Avon / Harper Voyager and Tessa Bailey for this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I was very curious about Natalie and August after meeting them in Secretly Yours, but I was nervous to read their story since I didn't love the previous book. I had nothing to worry about though and fans of Tessa Bailey are going to love this one! It has all the heart and humor that she’s known for and also a very healthy dose of steam. ;)

Things to look forward to:
- Tropes like enemies to lovers, marriage of convenience, forced proximity, he falls first, touch her and die, opposites attract, who did this to you?, pining
- August. I love it when a hero is all in and August is beyond gone for Natalie. He may put his foot in his mouth (a lot) and give off ultra alpha vibes, but underneath all that is the softest, ooey, gooey center. His golden retriever energy is off the charts and there’s nothing he won’t do for his wife. *swoon*
- Natalie. I love it when an underestimated and overlooked character rises up and shows everyone how wrong they were. I felt that her insecurities were honest and very relatable. Anyone who’s ever been told they’re not “enough”, will be rooting for Natalie and cheering her on every step of the way.
- The steam. It’s Tessa Bailey. Would you expect anything less than scorching hot sex scenes and dirty talk?? If you're a fan of the "my wife" moments, you're going to be over the moon. ;)
- The laughs! Yes, some of the pranks and language were very teenage boy, but I loved that playful side between August and Natalie. They might disagree and butt heads, but I loved that they could always make each other laugh.

I did feel a little frustrated by the miscommunication and lying by omission, but I loved how both characters grew and supported each other throughout the novel. The epilogue was adorable and it was 100% August. *all heart eyes* I definitely had a smile on my face when I finished this one.

CW: death of loved one (past), PTSD, discussion of war & war related injuries, financial problems, strained relationship with parents, parental abandonment, grief, panic attack (on page), mentions of past fire & damage, flash flood & water rescue of a family (on page)

*I voluntarily read an advance review copy of this book*

I’m so excited to share my review of Unfortunately Yours with you today. I loved Secretly Yours, the first book in A Vine Mess series, and I couldn’t wait to read this one too. Natalie and August met in Secretly Yours, and you could tell there was a lot of chemistry between them, even through the snarky banter. Well, I was not disappointed! Unfortunately Yours is a fantastic addition to the series, and I found yet another book boyfriend to add to my list.

An ex-Navy Seal who started his winery in honor of his fallen best friend, August struggles with guilt, feelings of failure, and frustration on many levels. Natalie also has her share of struggles, as her teenage reputation follows her, her fiancée dumped her, and her career is in shambles. These are the main reasons for their fake marriage. Through it, August can get the bank loan he needs, and Natalie can receive her inheritance and start her own company. However, their marriage of convenience is anything but convenient, especially as their attraction and feelings become more difficult to deny and resist.

Even before they admit their feelings, you can see they want to get to know each other more, they yearn for the connection. I love how the author creates such a nuanced and beautiful love story between two flawed people who seem very much opposites but are actually perfect for each other. At the start, it seems like their distaste for each other and their constant bickering would keep them apart. However, they find ways to take their antagonistic banter and made it fun sparring, practical jokes, and pranks. They tease and have fun, and I feel like they really tried to understand each other. They were sensitive to each other’s pain and trauma and insecurities. On top of the sizzling heat between them (and it is SIZZLING! Whew, the spice and dirty talk are STEAMY!!), there is a tender understanding and profound respect.

And I really love how much they have each other’s backs. It’s pretty obvious that August has strong feelings for Natalie from the get-go, and he shows it in a million different ways. I think he’s one of the few people who supports her unequivocally, and he prioritizes her needs and her emotional wellness, which she hasn’t really experienced in her family or romantic relationships. August is so disarming, and he shakes Natalie and her family up. It’s fantastic! They definitely need a little shaking, especially Natalie’s mother, who does not endear herself to the reader at all! I think having August in her life has changed Natalie for the better. They are both flawed characters who grow and change over the course of the story, and they become better versions of themselves when they’re together.

I adored Unfortunately Yours, and it is definitely one of my top contemporary romance reads of the year. It’s funny and steamy, heartwarming and heartbreaking, and it has dynamic and compelling characters.

Special thanks to Avon Books for sending me a copy of Unfortunately Yours. All thoughts are my own.