Incredibly follow-up to Fan Girl Down. Tessa Bailey really has such a way with a romance novel and building really likable, fun characters! She can write some silly (sometimes outrageous circumstances) and because she’s good at you can just go “yup I’m into it”. Bravo, yet again. The romantic relationship was obviously the main pull and such a triumph in this book but I also really loved the relationship Bailey built between Tallulah and Burgess’s daughter. It was a special bond and one I enjoyed seeing blossom.

Overall I really enjoyed this! I loved Fangirl Down and knew I wanted to get to read about this couple and it did not disappoint. This is only my 2nd romance featuring a hockey player and I thought it was done really well. As a single parent myself I have really been enjoying books featuring single parents recently. There was great banter and tension throughout and Tessa really knows how to write a dirty-talking man.
I appreciated the wide range of emotions that I experienced while reading this romance.
Tessa has definitely recently become and auto-read author for me.
I will post my review on my bookstagram on release day! instagram.com/thatbookishteach

Fun, funny, steamy, but the ending felt rushed, and I felt like the heroine had so much less developed as a character than the hero was.

Tessa surprised me with the first in this series- a romance novel about GOLF of all things. This hockey romance was actually pretty good. Light and fun while also having some emotional and messy parts. Tessa writing is well paced and enjoyable to read. While her stories range in a spectrum of star ratings for me, this one is a solid 4 star. I enjoyed it, id recommend it. It had enough hockey to rightfully call itself a hockey romance, which I greatly appreciate. I also enjoyed having Lissa in the mix and how she not only played into the story but into the relationship as a whole. Kids can complicate a relationship and I appreciated her in this one.

Stunning. What an excellent read. The characters were fun and relatable. I normally don’t enjoy stories that have kids in them, but this was is a definite exception!

Swoon.

I got the ARC of this a few days after I read the ARC of Fangirl Down. I inhaled them both in just a day. As soon as I read the interactions between Burgess and Tallulah in Fangirl Down I knew their story would be so much fun.

Tallulah is new to town and is offered the opportunity to be a live in nanny for a mutual friend while she finishes her marine biology degree. Burgess is a hockey star who is struggling with deciding his career path that will ultimately come after hockey. He's been pretty single and focused on work and his tween daughter since the divorce and hasn't had much time for dating. Tallulah decides she wants to help Burgess loosen up and get back into the dating scene. The only problem is that they only seem to have eyes for each other.

Burges is pretty much obsessed with Tallulah from the beginning, I love a gruff and protective hero. The scenes at the park mixer had me laughing out loud. They tried so hard to pretend like their relationship was just friendship and it was hilarious. I expect a dirty talking hero from Tessa, and Burgess didn't disappoint. I was happy to get a glimpse into Wells and Josephine's life after their book.

It's rare that I would give a book five stars and yet both books in the series so far are five stars for me! This is definitely a book that I could ready over and over. I loved Fangirl Down so much and can't believe that I could love The Au Pair Affair even more. If the next in the series is Sig and Chloe I can already tell I am going to love it.

Tropes included: hockey romance, nanny/boss, age gap, single parent, forced proximity, he falls first, roommates, groveling, grumpy/sunshine. dirty talking hero

Thank you to Tessa Bailey, NetGalley and Avon Harper Voyager for this eARC. All opinions expressed are my own.

As I state in all my Tessa Bailey reviews, she is one of my top authors. I will never NOT jump to read one of her books. The Au Pair Affair was no different. It comes in hot off the heels of FanGirl Down and I was fortunate enough for NetGalley and Avon & Harper Voyager to grant me both ARCs and I devoured them back to back. Tallulah is the wonderful young carefree spirit and Burgess is the older shutdown grump - one of my favorite character duos! Per usual, Tessa Bailey has gifted us a laugh out loud, spicy, heart tugging story that will send you down both ends of the emotional spectrum. I love her, I love her books, I love her characters, and I can't wait for more!!

The Au Pair Affair follows Burgess and Tallulah as they navigate their new au pair relationship. Tallulah moves in with Burgess to help nanny for his daughter Lissa, but they quickly realize they have too much chemistry to keep a strictly professional relationship. This is the second installment in Tessa Bailey's Big Shots series featuring romances with all-star athletes.

I wanted to love The Au Pair Affair so bad. And genuinely, there were many aspects that I did love about it. The writing felt effortless, and the physical chemistry between Tallulah and Burgess was evident. I also greatly enjoyed Tallulah and Burgess's relationship with Lissa, as well as the appearances from Wells, Sig, Chloe, and Josephine. It definitely felt very found family, and made me excited about a potential book about Chloe next (but also are they really going to be step siblings... are we really going there?).

The beginning of this book had me SO excited, but the last 30% really let me down. This romance felt more like lust than love to me. When I read a romance, I am looking for an undeniable emotional connection between our two main characters. It seemed like Burgess and Tallulah had to compromise too much on their own ends in order to be together, and being together was heavily motivated by physical attraction. The relationship also felt so inappropriate from the beginning. There was minimal conversation about how the two of them should not be involved, and they jumped right into it from the start. Yes there was "hesitation" to label it, but that did not stop them from having a physical relationship. Considering there is a child involved, I just wish there had been more conversation before jumping into a physical relationship. Really, it just shouldn't have happened but, alas, then there would be no plot to the book (which there wasn't much of in the first place).

I also had to keep asking myself throughout this book what Tallulah could possibly gain from this relationship. By the end, I still genuinely have no idea how this relationship benefited her except that she gets to date an all-star hockey player. Burgess seemed to benefit exponentially from their relationship whereas Tallulah had to relive her trauma and take care of an older man because he refused to take care of himself. Also, the third act conflict was not just a breakup but Burgess doing a complete 180 and acting like a monster to Tallulah, which is everything she feared he would be from the start. If it were me, I would never recover from a man speaking to me the way that he did. It quickly made from me not caring about the man to not wanting him anywhere near Tallulah, because she deserved so much better!

In terms of enjoyment, 4 stars. I always enjoy Tessa Bailey's writing and have fun with her books. However, when I look closer and truly analyze the text, this felt more like 2 stars, so we're going with 3. If you enjoy Tessa Bailey, I think this one will be fun for you. It's not my favorite by her but also not my least favorite either.

This is a fun, sexy read by the Queen of Spice herself! She really outdid herself with the sexy times in this novel about an end of his career hockey player and his new au pair. From the moment they met in California, there were sparks, and Burgess knew he had to have Tallulah in his life in some capacity. Enter the nanny job he was looking to fill to help him with his preteen daughter, Lissa. It just so happens that Tallulah was looking for a job and apartment near the university in Boston where she'd be earning her Master's degree. She had no idea that working for a famous hockey player 11 years her senior would take her on a rollercoaster ride of emotions.

This is a super tropey romance novel: age gap, third-act break-up, insta-love...but they worked well together to give the reader an enjoyable reading experience. It's a cute but super spicy book, the sex scenes are abound in this one, folks! And they are all hot, hot, hot!

Tallulah's age is old enough that I didn't cringe too much with this age-gap novel (not my personal favorite trope). The insta-love worked for me because it was Burgess who was there right away, and I'm all for the guy instantly falling for a woman. Overall enjoyed the fun banter between Burgess and Tallulah, loved their chemistry, both intellectual and sexual, and the steaminess is out of this world!

I LOVED this book! I couldn’t put this book down and it was amazing to read. I fell in love with the characters and lived for when burgess took care of Tallulah. I loved the connection with burgesses daughter and really felt for the tender moments.

3.5 ⭐ spicy and lots of heat in this hockey romance from Tessa Bailey. I loved her golf romance, Fangirl Down, and when I saw that this had two of the characters from that book in it, I knew I wanted to read it! While I didn't love this one quite as much, it was still a fun read and if you are a sports romance fan, I think you will love it.

Think single dad + au pair + some serious sparks.

What didn't work for me... I think I didn't love how much this single dad needed Tallulah 's help with his daughter... Men can be amazing parents too and I wanted him to get more credit, or something. Obviously this was just a personal feeling about the dynamics at play.

I also wasn't a huge fan of the spice in this book but that's what's great about reading, you can always find something for everyone!

Tessa Bailey fans will love this easy to read, fireworks 🎆 of a romance. You will be rooting for our adorable main characters the whole time. ❤️

Thanks to netgalley for an ARC to review.

I enjoyed this book but not as much as the previous one in the series. There didn't seem to be a lot of chemistry between the main characters. Of course there was the signature dirty talk but I found myself skimming because it didn't come across as genuine. I was more intrigued by the side characters

Living up to its predecessor, Fangirl Down was a tall order, but one I believed Tallulah and Burgess could live up to. As I’ve come to understand, we are all wrong at some point in our life and it appears as though after years of waiting, now is my time to shine.

Tessa Bailey has always catered to the crowd that was looking for a good time. The caliber of writing was up to par with those who were craving a fun and dare I say, steamy read. That being said, the tone of this particular novel did not ring true to that statement. On the contrary, we, as readers, were introduced to a more serious plot through our female protagonist, Tallulah, that weighed with the remnants of a traumatic past. While I believe authors should be encouraged to explore outside the confines they’ve been built within, as with almost anything in life, there is a sensitivity to it that should be considered. Tallulah’s young adulthood, riddled with nightmares most of us only fear over, was permeated with grief over a life that could’ve been lived, but that she is now forced to merely exist in. Up until Tallulah’s interest in Burgess became romantic, her experiences were presented mindfully. Then, lust became the solution to years of pent up suffering. For some, intimacy becomes a coping mechanism, but in this instance, it was insinuated, whether consciously or not, that it was the last step in the bridge between her debilitating past and adventurous future. In no way do I want to invalidate Tallulah’s journey to recovery. All I’m saying is that perhaps we shouldn’t address more intense topics if we aren’t going to give them the nuance they deserve.

Burgess. I couldn’t put it more blatantly. Burgess was the bane of my existence. Truly, I’ve pondered through a million different ways of putting it, but it comes down all the same to his overbearing masculine nature. As a man, it came to no surprise to me that he was the common denominator in all my complaints. There is a difference between protectiveness and possessiveness, and Burgess completely overstepped into the latter with his ‘who did this to you’ persona. There’s a time and place and he missed them both. Needless to say, given the actions of Tallulah’s ex, it left a sour taste in my mouth and I’m surprised it didn’t do the same to her.

As for the writing, it was very millennial core, and with all due respect, while I’ve come to expect that in Bailey’s novels, it was just too much. The second Burgess was crowned Sir Savage, I was out. I never claimed to be God’s strongest soldier, yet alas.

Despite being written in the third-person, we are still getting a dual POV and while I’m always an advocate for this kind of storytelling, the timeline seems to drift so drastically in the sense that the author was grazing over some of the most important scenes, allowing us to only see their aftermath, that it took away the magic.

Given that Josephine and Wells, our previous couple, were such an influence in Burgess and Tallulah’s arrangement, I expected to see them more. If not throughout the story, than at least at the end when the group is in Costa Rica for the Whitaker-Doyle wedding. Such a missed opportunity with the epilogue in that regard…

Talking tropes, as a single-dad + nanny connoisseur, I was gravely disappointed. I’ve made my peace with tropes being falsely acquainted with books purely to appeal to a wider audience, particularly in the romance space. Yet I was still taken aback when our nanny wasn’t nannying, nor was our single dad fathering. Poor Lissa basically raised herself at this point. What’s the fun in that?!

Third act breakups, you say? Basically a given when committing to a Tessa Bailey book. But this one was very overdramatized and yet, the MMC still didn’t do enough groveling. Surprise surprise.

All in all, my advice to anyone going into this is to expect everything except the synopsis.

Thank you to Avon and Tessa Bailey for providing me with an ARC. As always, all thoughts are my own and are in no way influenced by early access to this title.

I LOVE SINGLE DADS. Sorry but this is my favorite trope, and Tessa Bailey does it like no other. This man made me absolutely FERAL. We are lucky to live in time of literary genius like Ms. Bailey

i love the concept but the execution was really not it. i don’t really care about the smut i care about the romance developing and her relationship with his daughter. i think i need to take a break from tessa bailey for a while

Tessa Bailey + hockey romance is everything I've ever wanted. This novel is spicy, heartfelt, laugh out loud funny, and tackles real issues and trauma. If you liked Fangirl Down, you'll love the Au Pair Affair!
Tallulah is the new au pair for Sir Savage, the hockey sensation known for his aggressive play on the ice -- also known as Burgess Abraham, a single dad in desperate need of some help with his 11-year-old daughter. As Tallulah becomes more entrenched in their family unit, she also works her way into Burgess's heart. The two develop an insatiable attraction, but Tallulah's past trauma prevents their heat from turning into anything more.
This book's tropes include forced proximity, he falls first, Mean Daddy, grumpy x sunshine, age gap, single dad, and an HEA. There was also a fun cross-over with Wells and Josephine and I AM PRAYING another book in this world for Sid and Chloe (whom I already love and would sell my soul to see more of).
5⭐
4🌶️

Quick Summary: An age gap, sports romance

My Review: The Au Pair Affair by Tessa Bailey is book #2 in the Big Shots series.

About the Book: Hockey player and single parent dad, Burgess, employs graduate student, Tallulah, as his daughter's au pair. While living together under a new and unfamiliar arrangement, the three learn how to become more to each other.

My Final Say: There were quite a few serious issues associated with this contemporary story. With that said, there was also humor, loyalty, spice, friendship, and love. Burgess and Tallulah had an interesting dynamic between them. I liked how they helped each other to see beyond their experiences.

Other: I'm looking forward to reading the next story in this series. I really liked the team members.

Rating: 3.75/5
Recommend: Yes
Audience: A
Status/Level: 💛🌶
Triggers: Assault/kidnapping, fear/trauma, divorce
Series: Yes

Appreciation is extended to the author, to the publisher (Avon and Harper Voyager | Avon), and to NetGalley. Thank you for the opportunity to review a digital ARC of this title in exchange for an honest review. The words I have voluntarily shared are my own.

My favorite things about this book were the hockey and the Boston setting. The author actually did her research and featured a lot of real places/people in a way that felt authentic and was only sometimes cheesy.

A feel good romcom with some harder background storylines but an overall HEA that will leave you satisfied.

Thanks to Avon and NetGalley for the ARC.

I have to say there was something incredibly beautiful about reading a book where the man is the definition of this alpha male, incredibly aggressive hockey player yet he falls first head over heels for the nanny and he becomes just this big old teddy bear.

Tallulah is studying to become a marine biologist when she takes the job to become the nanny for a hockey player's tween daughter. She brings to their household a lot of light, sunshine and a new perspective on life.

Burgess is a very jaded professional hockey player. He has some things in his past and doesn't really seem to want to move on from them in any sort of happy way.

When the two of them really start connecting, he becomes absolutely smitten with her and it was adorable. I freaking loved the relationship.

I think Tessa Bailey is turning me into a sports romance fan and I am 100% on board with this new journey.

Tessa does it again this is the perfect sequel to fangirl down I absolutely loved seeing the characters grow! 10/10 recommend this story I loved the MMC so much more than the fmc simply because at times she seemed just soo childish and her choices made me more angry than I would've liked. I was not prepared for the trauma share in this book so I really wish there would have been a warning however the story itself and would read it again and again.