A review by wolfiereads
It Happened One Summer by Tessa Bailey

5.0

I'm a huge Tessa Bailey fan but try to read every new release as if it's from an author I've never heard of. Her work has noticeably improved with every new book, and this is no exception! Bailey has a unique gift of humanizing polarizing personalities - in this case, a 28 year old spoiled socialite whose world doesn't exist outside social media, or Los Angeles for that matter. If Piper was portrayed slightly different and we weren't given her internal conflict at realizing she's been coasting by and has no redeemable talents, I would've stopped reading after the first chapter. Even though I was rolling my eyes at her in the beginning, I found myself empathizing with her as the story progressed and in the end, I was happy with the person she grew into.

I love the grumpy, protective hero, and the chemistry between the two leads is a great slow burn that feels natural. It's a loose but refreshing take on both the riches-to-rags and enemies-to-lovers troupe and is perfect escapism read for this crazy time. I'm definitely buying a copy when it's officially released!

Thank you SO much to NetGalley and Avon Books and Harper Voyager for providing me an ARC to review!