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Secretly Yours by Tessa Bailey
Series: A Vine Mess #1
Publication date: February 7th, 2023
Pages: 380
Spice: 🌶️🌶️🌶️
Synopsis:
A steamy new rom-com about a starchy professor and the bubbly neighbor he clashes with at every turn...
Hallie Welch fell hard for Julian Vos at fourteen, after they almost kissed in the dark vineyards of his family's winery. Now the prodigal hottie has returned to their small town. When Hallie is hired to revamp the gardens on the Vos estate, she wonders if she'll finally get that smooch. But the grumpy professor isn't the teenager she remembers and their polar opposite personalities clash spectacularly. One wine-fueled girls' night later, Hallie can't shake the sense that she did something reckless--and then she remembers the drunken secret admirer letter she left for Julian. Oh shit.
On sabbatical from his ivy league job, Julian plans to write a novel. But having Hallie gardening right outside his window is the ultimate distraction. She's eccentric, chronically late, often literally covered in dirt--and so unbelievably beautiful, he can't focus on anything else. Until he finds an anonymous letter sent by a woman from his past. Even as Julian wonders about this admirer, he's sucked further into Hallie's orbit. Like the flowers she plants all over town, Hallie is a burst of color in Julian's gray-scale life. For a man who irons his socks and runs on tight schedules, her sunny chaotic energy makes zero sense. But there's something so familiar about her... and her very presence is turning his world upside down.
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Review:
Hallie is the token wild child of her small town. She sticks to no schedule and does what she believes is right even if the methods at which she accomplishes these goals are riddled with chaotic energy. She is the type that will commit small acts of vandalism and theft in order to show support for a locally forgotten wine store her grandmother used to frequent before she passed. She is also the type of gardener who would show up an hour and a half past the time she was supposed to be there to revamp the Vos's estate. The last time she had set foot on their property had been when she was fourteen and almost had some serious lip-lock with Julian Vos. But at fourteen the opportunity had come and gone. Julian went off to college to become a ivy league professor and Hallie had remained with her grandmother taking over her business. Her crush on Julian had lasted for fifteen years and she wondered if he was the same as he was when she had first known him. Julian was anything but. In his place was a grumpy professor turned aspiring author who stuck to a strict schedule and resented Hallie her carefree nature. They were so completely opposite that there was no way they would ever work. But for some reason they both feel the pull towards one another that is inescapable. Which leads Hallie to drunkenly write Julian an anonymous love letter confessing her feelings about him which makes the professor consider maybe people can change if given the right motivation.
I have always been a dark romance girlie for years. I only recently started venturing into the world of romantic comedies when I started reading Lucy Score books. This was my first Tessa Bailey book and it did not disappoint. I now understand why people find her writing to be so addictive. I was hooked from the first chapter on and couldn't put it down for two days straight. The characters she created were infectious and personable. The town she wrote about made me wish my own small town was a little more connected and loyal like theirs was. It gave some really good insight into anxiety disorders and the affects they have on people. It expressed the importance of family and the ability to communicate effectively with one another. One of the facets I enjoyed the most was watching the characters change for the better but they didn't change for each other, they changed for themselves. They realized their shortcomings and flaws and worked to correct them. It was great to watch them each have their own moments of personal growth.
I laughed, cried, swooned, and raged from one page flip to the next. Bailey took me on a rollercoaster of small-town living with two wounded but not broken people who were so different but fit so perfect together. If you have not read any of Tessa Bailey's books yet, I would highly recommend you start. She is a master of her craft and I can't wait to devour the rest of the books she's published.
