April 26th, 2023
Romantic Reads
Welcome in the summer and melt with these warmhearted books!Hook, Line, and Sinkerby Tessa Bailey
Hannah Bellinger has gone her entire life as the “side character”. When it comes to both her work and relationships, she’s in the supporting cast. She helps her sister on her journey to find love, and she is always a shoulder to cry on for friends. She is even a production assistant, literally getting coffee for the leading actors in the films she works on. However, when she develops a close friendship with the handsome and carefree Fox Thorton while visiting her sister in the small fishing village of Westport, WA, things get complicated. Quickly. She realizes she is starting to have quite the crush on Fox and doesn’t really know what to do about it. Who would go for a supporting actress? To top it off, the filming crew she’s working on is moving the production from L.A. to Westport, and Hannah ends up having to crash at Fox’s place for a week. Will their friendship last the week intact or will they both make some mistakes? Will Hannah finally step into a leading lady role in her life?I’m a huge Tessa Bailey fan, but I especially adored this book, and I think it’s one of her strongest novels! It was such a fun and easy light read. I fell in love with the characters quickly, my favorite being Hannah. I found that I empathized with her throughout the whole book. I have rarely felt so seen and almost called out by a character. I also loved the personal development of both Fox and Hannah, it felt realistic, complete, and made for a fun journey. Hook, Line, and Sinker is full of small twists and turns, and each event in Hannah and Fox’s story reeled me in through the pages. (Editor’s note: The book can be read as a standalone, but it’s also the second in a series after Bailey’s It Happened One Summer.)
Hannah Bellinger has gone her entire life as the “side character”. When it comes to both her work and relationships, she’s in the supporting cast. She helps her sister on her journey to find love, and she is always a shoulder to cry on for friends. She is even a production assistant, literally getting coffee for the leading actors in the films she works on. However, when she develops a close friendship with the handsome and carefree Fox Thorton while visiting her sister in the small fishing village of Westport, WA, things get complicated. Quickly. She realizes she is starting to have quite the crush on Fox and doesn’t really know what to do about it. Who would go for a supporting actress? To top it off, the filming crew she’s working on is moving the production from L.A. to Westport, and Hannah ends up having to crash at Fox’s place for a week. Will their friendship last the week intact or will they both make some mistakes? Will Hannah finally step into a leading lady role in her life?I’m a huge Tessa Bailey fan, but I especially adored this book, and I think it’s one of her strongest novels! It was such a fun and easy light read. I fell in love with the characters quickly, my favorite being Hannah. I found that I empathized with her throughout the whole book. I have rarely felt so seen and almost called out by a character. I also loved the personal development of both Fox and Hannah, it felt realistic, complete, and made for a fun journey. Hook, Line, and Sinker is full of small twists and turns, and each event in Hannah and Fox’s story reeled me in through the pages. (Editor’s note: The book can be read as a standalone, but it’s also the second in a series after Bailey’s It Happened One Summer.)—Syd Morgan, Books Editor
Well Metby Jen DeLuca
Do you love the Bristol Renaissance Faire? Think it’d be oh-so-romantic to meet a significant other while wearing chain mail or a court jester costume? If you answered with a resounding, “Aye, m’lady!” I have a stupidly fun story for you. In Well Met, big-city girl Emily returns to her small hometown of Willow Creek, Maryland, to help her sister recover after an accident. She’s counting the days until her sister is back on her feet so she can get out of Hicksville, but then her niece ropes her into working at the local Renaissance faire. (And yes, “faire” always ends with an E in that context. Why? I have no idea. It just does.) She’s assigned to work as “Emma the tavern wench” at the drinks station, wearing a costume cut down to South America and watching the lucky women dressed as fairies or queens flit about the grounds while she’s hefting ale crates and slogging grog across the bar at unruly Vikings and elves. To top it all off, there’s Simon, a know-it-all English teacher in charge of the tavern, whom one Goodreads reviewer described as a “strict, pretentious d**chebag.” Needless to say, this is an enemies-to-lovers romance. But once the faire is on, Simon transforms into Captain Blackthorne, a hotter, less problematic version of Captain Jack Sparrow. After being charmingly wooed by Blackthorne, and discovering that his grouchy exterior hides a past trauma, Emily quickly forgives him for his terrible first impression. And once he’s no longer an enemy, she realizes she might just want him to be more than just a friend. Well Met is sweet and fun, but it isn’t a top-tier romance for me, due to Simon’s whiplash-inducing change of heart about romance, and Emily’s idiot theories about Shakespeare. (Who wrote Shakespeare’s plays? SHAKESPEARE DID, OMG. #fightme) But I love Ren faires, and so, clearly, does DeLuca. The setting alone gets five fun-beach-read stars. Emily as a likeable heroine would get 5 stars as well, but I’m morally obligated to take two away for intellectual flabbiness. And Simon also gets two stars taken away for being an English teacher who doesn’t run for the hills as soon as the name “Edward de Vere” leaves his love interest’s lips. That said, if you need something to pass the time before Bristol opens on July 8th, and anti-Stratfordian theories don’t make your head explode, give Well Met a try. And if my somewhat wishy-washy review of it puts you off, look for the our “Best Beach Books of All Time” article, coming in our Summer Driftwood during finals week.
Do you love the Bristol Renaissance Faire? Think it’d be oh-so-romantic to meet a significant other while wearing chain mail or a court jester costume? If you answered with a resounding, “Aye, m’lady!” I have a stupidly fun story for you. In Well Met, big-city girl Emily returns to her small hometown of Willow Creek, Maryland, to help her sister recover after an accident. She’s counting the days until her sister is back on her feet so she can get out of Hicksville, but then her niece ropes her into working at the local Renaissance faire. (And yes, “faire” always ends with an E in that context. Why? I have no idea. It just does.) She’s assigned to work as “Emma the tavern wench” at the drinks station, wearing a costume cut down to South America and watching the lucky women dressed as fairies or queens flit about the grounds while she’s hefting ale crates and slogging grog across the bar at unruly Vikings and elves. To top it all off, there’s Simon, a know-it-all English teacher in charge of the tavern, whom one Goodreads reviewer described as a “strict, pretentious d**chebag.” Needless to say, this is an enemies-to-lovers romance. But once the faire is on, Simon transforms into Captain Blackthorne, a hotter, less problematic version of Captain Jack Sparrow. After being charmingly wooed by Blackthorne, and discovering that his grouchy exterior hides a past trauma, Emily quickly forgives him for his terrible first impression. And once he’s no longer an enemy, she realizes she might just want him to be more than just a friend. Well Met is sweet and fun, but it isn’t a top-tier romance for me, due to Simon’s whiplash-inducing change of heart about romance, and Emily’s idiot theories about Shakespeare. (Who wrote Shakespeare’s plays? SHAKESPEARE DID, OMG. #fightme) But I love Ren faires, and so, clearly, does DeLuca. The setting alone gets five fun-beach-read stars. Emily as a likeable heroine would get 5 stars as well, but I’m morally obligated to take two away for intellectual flabbiness. And Simon also gets two stars taken away for being an English teacher who doesn’t run for the hills as soon as the name “Edward de Vere” leaves his love interest’s lips. That said, if you need something to pass the time before Bristol opens on July 8th, and anti-Stratfordian theories don’t make your head explode, give Well Met a try. And if my somewhat wishy-washy review of it puts you off, look for the our “Best Beach Books of All Time” article, coming in our Summer Driftwood during finals week. —Tracy Fernandez Rysavy, Driftwood Advisor