Book reviews Contemporary

It Happened One Summer by Tessa Bailey

About the Book- It happened one summer

Piper Bellinger is fashionable, influential, and her reputation as a wild child means the paparazzi are constantly on her heels. When too much champagne and an out-of-control rooftop party lands Piper in the slammer, her stepfather decides enough is enough. So he cuts her off, and sends Piper and her sister to learn some responsibility running their late father’s dive bar… in Washington.

Piper hasn’t even been in Westport for five minutes when she meets big, bearded sea captain Brendan, who thinks she won’t last a week outside of Beverly Hills. So what if Piper can’t do math, and the idea of sleeping in a shabby apartment with bunk beds gives her hives. How bad could it really be? She’s determined to show her stepfather—and the hot, grumpy local—that she’s more than a pretty face.

Except it’s a small town and everywhere she turns, she bumps into Brendan. The fun-loving socialite and the gruff fisherman are polar opposites, but there’s an undeniable attraction simmering between them. Piper doesn’t want any distractions, especially feelings for a man who sails off into the sunset for weeks at a time. Yet as she reconnects with her past and begins to feel at home in Westport, Piper starts to wonder if the cold, glamorous life she knew is what she truly wants. LA is calling her name, but Brendan—and this town full of memories—may have already caught her heart. 

Tessa Bailey is back with a Schitt’s Creek-inspired rom-com about a Hollywood “It Girl” who is cut off from her wealthy family and exiled to a small Pacific Northwest beach town… where she butts heads with a surly, sexy local who thinks she doesn’t belong.

 It was like the whole purpose of the book was to show how a girl got a change of scenery and man

Read on for our review of the book

Our Review of It happened one summer

The only thing that this book managed to do was get me back to Schitt’s creek. Everybody was talking about it so much about how the book was perfect for Schitt’s creek lovers. How it was Alexis from Schitt’s… every blogger and vlogger was on and on about Schitt’s creek that after I finished the book I went back and picked up the series that I had left after two seasons. Must say returning to the series was nice. Honestly, I couldn’t see the Alexis in Piper of the book. Now, before I get into the review of It happened one summer, let me tell you that I went for the audiobook of this book. So take an extra note of this fact for the later part.

The plot is pretty out there for everybody to know as to what exactly is going to happen. Come on people! We all have read enough contemporaries to know how the romance is going to work out and how the story will eventually end up. The reason why we still go for the book is to see the way it will unfold and to experience and see the spark and chemistry of the characters. The whole spark of enemies to lovers, the hide and seek of the romance. You know all that little joys which makes them different. The book or Schitt’s creek inspired romance had all these sweet moments. But what I enjoyed more was the relationship between the two sisters than anything else in the book.

The central character is also fair enough to help you travel with the book as a naive little spoilt rich brat ending on crossroads and facing challenges. I am not going to talk about the character or plot holes because they all are perspectives and different to each reader. What I am going to do is touch on the general stuff that irritated and bothered me.

So as I mentioned before, I am on an audiobook for this book. So my experience was somewhat like listening to Beethoven and just before I am getting relaxed, the record goes bad and suddenly it is like listening to a cat being mauled and then my ears are bleeding all of a sudden. 

Till the portion where the romance is kicked off, everything is moderate, well bearable, going through your usual contemporary checklist. So I am thinking yeah this is good, a light breezy romance. Then the two characters hook up and just about everything changes. It goes from Sleeping beauty to 50 shades within a second. They were literally “Screaming and ……….” Loud In my ears. Usually, sex scenes shouldn’t creep you out in a romance novel because you know that is coming but with this book, it just simply scalded me. Why? Because till one paragraph before the characters are all cordial, polite and in fact, absolute gentleman and suddenly he is like “get down on your knees and obey me” and the girl is also like ….” oh yes master….” What the F… like what happened …when did the switch happen? And then the book is filled with all these “wild rides”, no worthwhile plot development. It was like the whole purpose of the book was to show how a girl got a change of scenery and man ….ok that may be a bit harsh but yeah technically that was what happened in the second half.

(how do you explain “doing it” in a hospital where your friend is probably on his death bed 😨… ok I am not going into plot holes)

You couldn’t help notice that the book kind of worked towards planting these seeds around how fishermen wives have to “BE THERE” and follow a specific life. Also how the man has to be “MAN” .( oh ! You will know once you read the book)

Conclusion

Ok, so the straight fact is that the book is your usual contemporary romance filled with the usual nooks and crooks of a candy floss romance. it would have worked well for me if the overload of “Man” worship and sex scenes had not creeped me out. It is not that I hate sex scenes but it has to be enhancing and part of the plot and not dropping everything midway for the sake of adding a sex scene. A lot of the portion of the book is just unnecessary hovering. 

Squirrel Rating

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