Title: It Happened One Summer
Author: Tessa Bailey
Publisher: Harper Audio
Release Date: July 13, 2021
Series: Bellinger Sisters #1
Genre: Contemporary Romance
Length: 10 Hours and 48 minutes
Source: Library
Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Find it Here: Amazon // Goodreads

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.

My Review: 

I have been chomping at the bit to write my review of It Happened One Summer by Tessa Baily. I listened to this book on audio and I loved it so much! I literally could not wait until I could listen to it again! It has almost everything I love in a contemporary romance and I can't wait to get into it! 

Now, I don't usually read contemporary romance; it's not the genre that I generally gravitate towards. But I had been seeing it on BookTok pretty regularly with a lot of glowing reviews so I tucked it away in the back of my mind. When I was browsing through Hoopla's instant title, It Happened One Summer popped up and I bumped it up to the top of my audio book list. 

I pretty much loved It Happened One Summer from the moment I started listening. The main character, Piper, messes up pretty badly while in LA, so her step-father cuts her off and ships her off to her home town in Washington State. In this little tiny town she meets Brendan, a local, grumpy, good-looking fisherman who tries to stay away from her, but fate has other ideas. 

I would have assumed that a character like Piper would bother or annoy me, but I found her to be charming and kind. I really enjoyed the grumpy-sunshine trope. I think it may be the first I've ever read. As much as I loved the (which I really did), I found it to be a little unbelievable. Like a rich girl getting cut off and then falling in love with a man who is secretly wealthy. And the whole ending scene in LA just rubbed me the wrong way for some reason. Other than those few points, I really did love the book and I am really looking forward to diving into the next one and many more Tessa Bailey books! 

Book Review: I'll Meet You There by Heather Demetrios

Title: I'll Meet You There

Author: Heather Demetrios
Publisher: Henry & Holt Co.
Release Date: February 03, 2015
Genre: Contemporary YA
Length: 388 pages
Source: Purchased
Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Find it Here: Amazon // Goodreads

If Skylar Evans were a typical Creek View girl, her future would involve a double-wide trailer, a baby on her hip, and the graveyard shift at Taco Bell. But after graduation, the only thing separating Skylar from art school is three months of summer…until Skylar’s mother loses her job, and Skylar realizes her dreams may be slipping out of reach.
Josh had a different escape route: the Marines. But after losing his leg in Afghanistan, he returns home, a shell of the cocksure boy he used to be.
What brings Skylar and Josh together is working at the Paradise—a quirky motel off California’s Highway 99. Despite their differences, their shared isolation turns into an unexpected friendship and, soon, something deeper.
Compelling and ultimately hopeful, this is a powerful examination of love, loss, and resilience.

My Review:

LOVE LOVE LOVE! I’ll Meet You There by Heather Demetrios is one of those perfect contemporary novels that I would recommend to all readers no matter what genre they prefer. The story is wonderful and the romance is absolutely beautiful!

"If you could make a beautiful piece of art from discarded newspaper and old matchbooks, then it meant that everything had potential. And maybe people were like collages-no matter how broken or useless we felt, we were an essential part of the whole. We mattered." -pg. 103

I’ll Meet You There has, what I like to call, the perfect love story. There’s no insta-love, there’s no I-just-met-him-but-I-know-we’ll-be-together-forever type thing and there’s no “perfect” characters in this novel either. Skylar and Josh are somewhat like acquaintances when we first meet them. Two years prior, Josh had graduated high school and went off to Afghanistan and Skylar had just started her junior year. Now Skylar has graduated and Josh has come home and their paths seems to cross no matter what. Which is good cause they’re getting to know one another and they have this tension between them that just keeps building in the best way possible! They take the time to build this strong foundation of friendship before anything crosses the line.

Josh has experienced all kinds of tragedies because of the war and Skylar has a lot of home problems with her mom which has made her wise beyond her years. They are just the perfect match for each other! They’re both learning how to cope with a major life change and they lean on each other for their support. They couldn’t have been brought together at a more perfect time! Everything about this story and Josh and Skylar’s relationship just seemed so perfect to me! It was friendship and then is was a little something more and then it was intense and learning to trust each other and learning to be vulnerable and learning how to cope and being open with each other. It’s a great example of how a healthy relationship can start out small and grow to become more!

Heather Demetrios really hit it out of the park with I’ll Meet You There! And, like I said, I recommend it to everyone!