Don't be fooled by the sweet cartoon cover - this book is a scorcher. Like... hot hot hot. Rosie and Dominic have been together since the seventh grade, and their marriage is in trouble, but their sexual chemistry is emphatically not the problem.

Rosie (who we met in Fix Her Up) has been feeling isolated in her marriage for a while, and trapped in her job. Dominic has been exclusively focused on providing for and caring for Rosie in invisible ways, and has stopped communicating. I'm not sure I've read a book that has the heroine leaving the hero in chapter two, but having a black moment that early on left me wondering how they were going to repair their marriage.

Bailey does a wonderful job of making their love for each other clear, and having them discover how to express that love. She also takes the unusual step of actually showing the characters in therapy (which has some serious comic moments, but also very very poignant).

I was a little annoyed by Dominic's stoicism and inability to reveal a secret he'd been keeping, but mostly I appreciated how quickly he accepted other feedback on how to be a better partner.

I'm really enjoying this series - it has comedy, a sweet cast of characters, and it also sizzles.

I received an ARC from the publisher via Netgalley for review.

Dang the steam is real with this one. I was not expecting that level of smut somehow. I didn't read the first book in this series although I know there were mixed reviews. Books like this make me wish for half star reviews because it's really not quite a 4 star but 3 stars seems low. I found the story engaging and inoffensive (not to say it couldn't be, just that I didn't pick up on it) which is pretty much all I'm looking for in a romance. Some of the terms used during the sexy times were a bit personally cringe-worthy but that won't bother everyone.

I was so in love with the first book in this series, I thought there would be no way that the second one could hold up. Oh boy was I wrong! I think I liked this one even more. I just thoroughly loved Rosie and Dominic Vega. Their relationship was so sweet and even though they were married, it had a really excellent slow burn. I am officially ready for the next book in this series!

I loved the first book in the series and the secondary characters were a big part of my happiness with this book. This second book in the series give the secondary characters a spotlight and I loved it!

I was not expecting how this book was going to make me cry! The feels in this had my emotions all over the place. If you got to read book one, we were introduced to married couple Dominick and Rosie. This is their story.

We learned they were having some trouble in book one and in Love Her or Lose Her, Rosie is at the end of her rope and decides to do something about it. This couple needed a wake up call. The author takes us on their journey to discover if their marriage can be saved.

I'm going to be honest here and say that I fell completely for Dominick. I don't want to give anything away so I am not going to go into details. I'm just going to say that this broken marriage was not what I thought it was going to be. The things you find out will make you swoon. Yes, swoon. I know that's not what you would think about a troubled marriage. Let's just say the proof is in the details.

What this book taught me is that it just goes to show that you can have a madly in love couple and still struggle. We all know that it takes work for a marriage to survive but this also pointed out that we may be blind to a few details. It really was a great way to follow an already established couple and see love come alive again.

I loved <b>Fix Her Up<b>, and had super high hopes for the second book in the <b><i>Hot and Hammered</i></b> series. Unfortunately, this one is a mess.

I had problems right off the bat. The principal characters are appealing on paper, but once you get to know them (OOPS! THAT NEVER ACTUALLY HAPPENS), I didn't like the trope - a marriage in trouble, and I always struggle with this authors addiction to nicknames. But since the first book featured a children's party planner who liked dressing as a clown and being silly - AND I LOVED HER - I ignored the warning signs and read it anyway.

Rosie has dreams of owning her own restaurant one day. She works as a perfume salesperson at a big box store and she hates it. She's a brilliant cook - and her friends and the <i>Just Us League</i> (a women's empowerment group started in <b>Fix Her Up</b>) never stop reminding her how talented she is. The group has even fundraised a portion of the money needed to start her own restaurant, but Rosie lacks the confidence to 'go for it.' So she spends her days at a job she hates, dressed in heels that make her miserable, and returns home to a silent, stoic husband who only pays attention to her on Tuesdays, when they have incredible sex. YEAR AFTER YEAR SHE LIVES THIS LIFE. Great, supportive friends + miserable job + disinterested husband + dreams of owning a restaurant.

After a stint abroad in the military, Dominic returned home a different man. Quiet and afraid to voice his feelings, he exists to serve his wife. He loves her and wants her...and thinks his father's version of marriage - provider first - is the way to his wife's heart. DESPITE ZERO EVIDENCE OF SUCCESS IN HIS OWN MARRIAGE. He doesn't ask Rosie about her life or her dreams or her desires, he simply clings to memories of long ago conversations about the type of home they envisioned for themselves, and works to provide for them. He loves Rosie more than ever (they were childhood sweethearts), but makes no attempt to get to know this adult version of her, only shedding his stoic facade when they have intense sex every Tuesday night.

Hmmm....so Rosie is fed up with her life and when the story opens, it's a TUESDAY SEX FEST DAY, and she's just not feeling it. Why should she feel like shit 6 days a week in her lame marriage she asks herself (for real girl, why did it take this long???!!!). So instead of telling her husband she wants more than amazing Tuesday night sex, she leaves him. As one does. No conversation, no 'why won't you talk to me?', no 'do you love me?', no...nothing.

Dominic, who apparently didn't realize giving your wife the silent treatment for years and then expecting great sex once a week isn't exactly normal, freaks out. When Rosie offers an opportunity to fix the complete disaster that is their relationship by seeing a marriage therapist, he's wary but desperate, and agrees.

And then this odd story goes totally off the rails.

Rosie and Dominic start going to a marriage therapist who: is getting high when they arrive for their first appointment and has a threesome in a tent they set up as a bonding exercise during a homework assignment after the second one. Ahem. Look, you adore your spouse, want to fix your marriage, and you agree a therapist that neither of you has any confidence in is a good bet. I call bullshit.

Marriage therapy is a real thing. It's hard work. Saving a marriage isn't a joke. But in <b>Love Her or Lose Her</b>, it's all jokey, jokey, sex-y, sex-y, funny friends, awkward bonding, jokey, jokey. Bam. Marriage saved. Because unlike most other struggling marriages, Dominic and Rosie actually LOVE EACH OTHER MORE THAN ANYTHING ON EARTH and HAVE AMAZING, INCREDIBLE, CRAZY HOT SEX and WOULD DO ANYTHING FOR EACH OTHER. Except for that one pesky BIG problem. They refuse to communicate with each other. Which - newsflash - is essential in any working relationship. Just freaking talk to each other.

Friends, I liked the brief glimpses of Georgie and Travis, and that's about it. Even the sex is overkill in this one. Chemistry is great, but if you can't share your hopes and dreams with someone you claim to love and is your soulmate, I don't think you're actually in love? We never know Rosie and Dominic beyond their insatiable lust for each other...and although I enjoyed the first tease of Bethany and the future love of her life...once the Just For Us league got involved and they bickered and bickered and bickered, the relationship grew tedious by the end. I think I'm already over them, too. Bummer.

Dominic and Rosie have been together since middle school but have stopped communicating outside of the bedroom. Rosie is done with feeling alone in her marriage. She wants out but Dominic isn’t letting her go. I loved this book. Bailey does a great job delving into each of their emotions and how they can love each other deeply while still failing to give each other what they truly need. I physically hurt for them at times but Bailey really manages to keep things from being too emotional. There is still laughter and all the dirty talk Bailey is known for. This might be favorite Tessa Bailey book ever.

I received a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

I'd be lying if I said this wasn't more than a little disappointing. Fix Her Up was one of my favorite romances of the year and unfortunately this one didn't even come close to hitting the same mark for me. I didn't feel the chemistry between Rosie and Dominic that I was hoping to feel based off of the snippets of tension we see between them in Fix Her Up. Also, if you disliked Travis (the love interest from Fix Her Up) for being too hyper-masculine, you will definitely not like Dominic. His entire personality revolved around ~*being the man Rosie needed*~ and it just.. really didn't work for me. Overall, this book was entertaining and I didn't hate it, but it definitely had more strikes against it than positives for me and I am sad.

I really liked Fix Her Up so I was excited to read the second book in this world. This is a second chance romance about a married couple, Rosie and Dominic. Like Fix Her Up, this was a very shmexy read. The sexual chemistry and interactions between Rosie and Dominic was super smutty, and it felt more natural compared to Travis and Georgie’s relationship.

Both characters are pretty intense and the plot is about them struggling to heal their broken marriage so it’s already a darker vibe. This made it a more angsty and serious story. I enjoyed FHU more because of Georgie’s charming personality. She brought a lot of light and levity to the romantic tension.

With Rosie and Dominic, they go from a level 1 to a level 10 in the tension, sexual chemistry just by breathing next to each other. And dare I say? After awhile it was too much sexual tension for me? I think I needed more humor between them. The couple goes to therapy, an aspect I really loved in the story, and that’s where we see more of them simply talking and trying to be comfortable with each other again.

The book focused very heavily on the concept of 5 Love Languages by Gary Chapman. A concept that says people have a innate preferred way of expressing and receiving love. Dominic expresses love by service. He does little things for Rosie. Rosie expresses love through words. And because they don’t understand each other’s love language, they’ve both been feeling undervalued and unloved in their marriage. I have read the Champan’s book and while I like the concept, I think Bailey focused too much on different love languages as the issue in the couple’s relationship.

This is worth reading if you liked Fix Her Up. It’s a lot more angsty and dark because of the characters’ personalities and their relationship, but it was still fun. And I loved seeing all the characters from the FHU. It looks like Bethany is next and it’s going to be a enemies-to-lovers one!

** Thank you to NetGalley and Avon for providing me with an arc to review.

Phew.... talk about STEAMY and HOT my friends!!

I LOVED this book! This was the perfect book to take on my honeymoon to Mexico.

What more can you ask for? Steam, spice, emotions, romance, and relatable characters! The fact that she wrote about a married couple?! I loved it even more!

The romance between these two characters was sweet, sexy, and oh my INTENSE! This is what a romance is all about my friends. You can't turn away from the chemistry between these two.

Dominic and Rosie are are on the brink of a separation after being married for 10 years. They both are unhappy with lack of communication and misunderstood desires that has led to a marriage of silence. They both are scared to talk to one another.... will their marriage last?

I've heard mixed reviews for her first book which I haven't read but this is ONE that you cannot miss!

4.5 stars!

Thank you so much to Avon and Netgalley for the arc in exchange for an honest review.

Pub date: 1/14/20
Published to GR: 11/24/19

I really enjoyed reading Fix Her Up, and Tessa Bailey did not disappoint with the second in the Hot & Hammered series. Rarely do romance novels focus on characters falling in love for a second time, and it was wonderful to watch Rosie and Dominic work for a second chance at love.

Okay I have iffy feelings about this book. For me it was a lot of hit or miss. I really liked Rosie and I came to like Dominic too but it was a bit of a tough book to get through at least for me. It was really different than most books that I read which I kind of enjoyed because they start out being married versus that being the ending even though it was a bit of the ending too. I just had a really tough time getting into this one, because of the fact that I found Dominic to be kind of challenging for most of it and I was just screaming, "TELL HER" like the entire time. The Just Us League though was absolutely incredible like even better than the first book, Tessa Bailey does such a great job in establishing a community to support the main characters. I think Bethany and Georgie were my favorite parts of this book, especially Bethany. Bethany was just so funny and I loved the girls relationship that part was so good. I'm also really looking forward to Bethany and Wes's story, that one sounds like it's going to be good, I love a hate to love story. Anyway, overall it was okay just not my favorite so 3 stars.

Second chance romance at its best. It was funny, heart wrenching and unbelievably sexy. This is an intense emotional rollercoaster.

I'd give this book 4.5 steamy stars. Tessa Bailey is a fantastic writer and world builder. Her characters are well fleshed out with interesting back stories. I enjoyed Rosie and Dominic's story as much as Georgie and Travis's from the first book in the series (and it was fun to see the latter couple again). I would describe this series as a very sexy small town contemporary romance. And when I say very sexy, I mean VERY SEXY. The sex is hot and there is a lot of it. All the males are Alpha with a capital A but they absolutely adore their women. I'm looking forward to Wes and Bethany's story - Bailey set up their relationship well.

A marriage on the brink. A last chance effort to improve their communication before it snaps. Tension so thicc. Angst. Fluff. Humor. This romance was HOT, complex, and made me cry from happiness more than once.

Writing: ★★★★
Romance: ★★★★★
Sexy times: oh mama
Character arcs: ★★★★

Oh oh oh, Tessa Bailey, this was so good. Thank you so much for writing this. The romance between these two characters was so perfect, so sweet—ok, also seriously intense and sexy—that now I don't know how to read other contemporary romances.

Maybe I'll just avoid the genre until the next one in this series comes out.

Y'all think I'm kidding, but I'm not—Love Her or Lose Her was absolutely jaw-dropping.

If you weren't a huge fan of Fix Her Up, I'd really encourage you to check this one out anyway. A lot of the things Fix Her Up did that polarized readers (ahem, the pet name being a big one, I believe) are fixed (pun intended) in this one. This isn't about two characters with undiscovered compatibility, and it doesn't feature an age gap, wage gap, or experience gap.

In fact, there are NO gaps—this is about a 10-year established relationship between two high school sweethearts who never, ever thought they'd get to this point: they're on the brink of a separation.

Years of dwindling open communication and misunderstood desires have lead Rosie and Dominic Vega to a marriage of silences. They're both unhappy, but afraid of broaching the subject because they're both worried of the conversation they'll have if they do. Will their marriage crack? Will they break it if they acknowledge the elephant in the room?

Love Her or Lose Her follows Rosie and Dominic in alternating chapters, giving us the full, 360 perspective on their feelings while they decide to pull the plug on the silence and figure out how to fix their marriage, or whether to call it quits.

I could not get enough of this story. Given the tough emotional opening, Love Her or Lose Her was surprisingly funny, uplifting, and happy. Rosie and Dominic are one of my favorite fictional romantic couples—mainly because they're so singular. I don't think I've read a duo with this much personality, and their love for each other made my heart ache in the best way.

A casual warning: This book is SEXY. If you're not a fan of graphic sexual content, I would give this a library try before taking the plunge. I loved it a lot and the plot definitely balances out the romantic/sexual moments, but when we arrive, we ARRIVE.

Thank you so much to Avon via NetGalley for an ARC of this title in exchange for an honest review.

ARC courtesy of Netgalley

Second chance romance here, a rom com with POC: a married couple living on Long Island who are having difficulties after the husband returns from his stint in the army, difficulties that stem not from PTSD, but from confusion over changing norms of masculinity. Puerto Rican-American Dominic and African-American/Argentinian Rosie were middle school sweethearts, and married young. After high school, Dom spent years in the military, and when he comes back, things between them have turned "dark, lustful, confusing, and... so far off course, [Rosie] wasn't sure their marriage would ever point in the right direction again" (Kindle Loc 156). After quietly accepting the state of their relationshiop for months, Rosie, now 27, decides that it's time to shake things up. She tells Dominic she's leaving him, despite the explosive sex the two continue to have. And ends up disappointed when Dom doesn't protest her leaving.

But Dom is feeling Rosie's absence; even if he doesn't know how to talk to her, he still loves her deeply. And so he asks her to come home. Her counter-offer: couples therapy.

The rom com aspect comes from said therapy, dished out by a hippy psychotherapist gung-ho on Gary Chapman's "love languages" theory. Rosie and Dom's problems stem from the different ways they prefer to give, and to receive, love: Rosie's more about words of affirmation, Dom more about acts of service. The answer may be simple, but actually fixing it will take a lot of practice. Practice which their therapist doles out in the form of weekly homework assignments, home work which challenges both Rosie and Dom to look more closely at one another, and share more of themselves with each other. Without having sex...

Their homework gradually puts the couple back in touch with their feelings for one another. But will Dom and Rosie's newly on-track relationship falter over the different plans each has for the future?

Interestingly, Dom's real problem isn't PTSD; instead, it is insecurity about not being able to provide for his wife. Before he went into the service, he thought he was doing well, having followed his father's example and purchased a good home for his wife. But in the military, he'd become more aware of class differences (although he sees it in a personal, rather than a class-conscious way): "He'd met so many soldiers during the service who had bigger, more elaborate plans for the years ahead. The money to make them all a reality. They'd gone on weekend getaways with their in-laws and already had plans for tech startups or to take over the family business. While Dominic had... nothing to give. Just himself." (1454).

Bailey's story is a humorous, but very real, interrogation of shifting norms of masculinity among working class couples.

I knew what to anticipate from the blurb- however- I was not prepared to see so much of my own life reflected back at me. Early on I had to stop reading and hit my group chat in disbelief. Rosie was the embodiment of so much of the same feelings and thoughts I am experiencing in my own 10+ year marriage. Featuring an already married couple isn't the norm in romance and it was refreshing. I still love- love my girl meets boy storied, but "boy and girl are married and sh!t isn't going right" is definitely a lane that should be explored more, so thank you for highlighting it!
The love languages, the way Rosie felt about her intimacy, the way Dom felt about his responsibilities, their friends and family supporting both of them. From top to bottom so many married people will see a piece of their lives in these pages.

This book was heartfelt, SEXY, and an enjoyable read. Reading a story about couples who are working through their problems together is something I've found I enjoy--seeing the reality within relationships. This one has all of that! I especially enjoyed the characters' views on couple's therapy and their therapist--the fact that they both had times where they thought, "Is this really worth it," was particularly insightful... especially since they still decide to attend therapy sessions.

This story was awesome!
I loved it very much!

(We met Rosie and Dominic in the previous book within this series. You can read each one on its own if you want - Just know you will be missing a little of the backstory. To me, this is missing out on a critical parts since it is the beginning in a sense.)

These two are clearly meant for each other. Somehow, they just lost their way a bit. Lost how to communicate with each other. This was very relatable to me. Easy to see. Could happen to any married couple.
So Rosie decides she wants him to agree to go to couple's counseling and shockingly, he agrees. She picks the most out there therapist for them thinking he will back out, but hoping he doesn’t. She's hoping he wants to save their marriage just as much as she does.
Dominic loves Rosie and always has since the day he saw her. He sees no one else. He does little things for her like starting her car to warm it up which she never knew he did. But he is also keeping a secret. A secret she senses.

I absolutely recommend you read this series. And this book. Both books in the series have been great!

Sexy and fun romance. Enjoyed seeing the characters from the previous book again but also more of Rosie and Dominic. Will definitely also pick up the third book in the series.