Book Smart Kate

Book: 🌟🌟

Hallie is a local landscaper with lousy luck when it comes to love. Her teenage crush, Julian, is a college professor on leave to write a novel at his family’s winery. The two reconnect when Hallie is hired to do landscaping at the winery. On a late-night whim, Hallie leaves a secret admirer letter. As Julian’s feelings for Hallie evolve, he is also drawn to the woman secretly writing him. Amid this is the madcap small-town wine country community.

Ugh. There are some Tessa Bailey books I think are fantastic (Hook, Line, and Sinker), some I believe need to be reconsidered altogether (My Killer Vacation), and then this category of ones where I just don’t seem to enjoy the FMC at all (It Happened One Summer). For me, Secretly Yours fell into this category. So little about Hallie or her connection to Julian felt authentic to me. Of anything in the book, Julian’s transformation was the most authentic, but it felt like that evolution might have happened with or without Hallie. Anyway, not totally sure that people read Tessa Bailey’s books for the plot 🫣, but the trend toward one-dimensional female leads isn’t my thing. I will try the next in the series, as I think Julian’s sister was an interesting character.

If you like this concept, try To Love Jason Thorn instead.