Marriage of convenience by THE Tessa Bailey? Say less.

This book is classic Tessa Bailey but ramped up times ten. The dirty talk? The tension? The gruff hero you can't help but fall in love with? Safe to say I was swooning the entire time reading. I loved August and Natalie so much. Marriage of convenience is one of my favorite tropes, and this didn't disappoint. There's nothing I love quite more than two dummies in denial of their feelings, which was basically the entirety of this book. What I loved more than anything though was how quickly August and Natalie came to care for each other despite hating/being constantly annoyed by each other, and how both were determined to go on with the fake marriage scheme so the other person could get what they wanted.

Overall, I loved this one so much. Tessa Bailey's romances never disappoint, and I can't wait to see what she comes out with next!

It’s likely that when I tell you “Unfortunately Yours” is a grumpy x sunshine, marriage-of-convenience book by Tessa Bailey, you’ll shout “SAY LESS.”

And honestly? That’s very fair. Really, it’s all you need to know.

But! I also need to say that I loved this a whole lot – like, It Happened One Summer a lot. Which was such a relief after Secretly Yours, the companion novel that precedes this, that you don’t necessarily need to read because this definitely works as a standalone, and that I wasn’t in love with.

Natalie (our grump) is relatable despite her Napa Valley wealth and privilege, and August (📢A NAVY SEAL WHO IS TRYING TO START A VINEYARD, THIS 👏IS 👏NOT A DRILL👏) is so, so funny and swoony and great.

AND THE SPICE???? Y’all – it is *potent*. I read this on a plane and was like, “On one hand, I hope no one is reading over my shoulder, on the other, you’re welcome.”

But there’s also great emotional arcs, and excellent banter, and a tuxedo-wearing cat.

In sum: it’s everything that’s great about romcoms, and with Tessa Bailey at the helm, it’s a hot, fun, binge-worthy romp through wine country that’ll have you laughing and gasping and reaching for water in equal measure.

You’ll love it.

4.5🌟
3🌶️

this started out to be better than secretly yours but alas it has the same rating… (3.5) i loved natalie and august’s banter but i didn’t love the dirty talk tbh.. it was kinda too porno-esque for me and that made me cringe a lot. i think the beginning was better than the rest of the book. i was kinda just over august saying natalie was the one being closed off but he was the exact same way… like let the girl help you make better wine dummy!!! overall i think the premise had a lot of potential but it was a little lackluster to me :( thanks to harper voyager & netgalley for this arc in exchange for an honest review! this book is available June 6, 2023!

August and Natalie had astounding chemistry in the few pages they were together in Secretly Yours, so I have been so excited to get their full story. It was even better than I hoped. It's difficult to list what I liked about this book without retelling the whole thing, but I will say that this is the ultimate example of why I like to read Tessa Bailey. The banter is easily the best I have ever read, but then August will throw in something so caring in the middle of it. Just so swoony. Natalie is a combination of competence and insecurity from past hurts, and she is making efforts to improve her life. She has a wicked sense of humor that adds to the fun. The chemistry stayed high through the whole story and about set my e-reader on fire. I loved every single page and smiled through the whole thing.

Unfortunately Yours by NYT Bestselling author Tessa Bailey is the second book in her Vine Mess series, the follow-up to Secretly Yours, and I devoured it!

Set in gorgeous California wine Natalie, who we met in Secretly Yours, has been home at the family winery licking her wounds after losing her fiancé and job in NYC. She is ready to start over but needs her trust fund released, which has some major strings attached. And former SEAL August failed trying to live out his late friend's dream of starting a winery. Although these two can't stand one another, they devise a one-month marriage-of-convince plan to save them both. What could go wrong?

We first met Natalie and August in Secretly Yours, and I was very excited to read their story, and this one ranks pretty high for me on my fave Tessa Bailey books! Enemies to lovers, a marriage of convenience, and the MMC is a cinnamon roll that falls first and falls hard. Bailey delivers an entertaining read with hilarious banter, swoony romance, and serious fireworks! I loved the two MCs and loved them together. They bickered but also had the emotional maturity to apologize and communicate. The pacing was fast, the energy playful, the dialogue on point, and many scenes were very funny. August can go from goofball to hero in the blink of an eye, and Natalie is strong and independent. Throw in some dirty talk and open-door spice, and you get a bingeable beach read hitting the shelves in time for summer reading! Highly recommended to steamy rom-com lovers!

Thank you to NetGalley, Avon Books and Harper Voyager for the opportunity to review this ARC!

Unfortunately Yours lives up to the hype!

I couldn't wait to read about Natalie & August after getting a sneak peek of them in Secretly Yours. I'm glad to report that I was not disappointed. Their chemistry is off the charts! The banter is top shelf and I couldn't get enough of them. I loved their dynamic of enemies to lovers with the marriage of convenience trope too. It created a lot of tension and humour, which is what I live for in romcoms. The dirty talk delivered too (but are we really surprised by that from the Queen of Dirty Talk? lol). The steamy times are great and added spice to the story.

I liked how the story ended too. It felt like a satisfying ending.

If you don't read this this summer, you'll be missing out!
Recommend if you love: enemies to lovers, opposites attract, forced proximity, marriage of convenience, small town romance, banter, steamy love scenes, & romcoms.

Thank you to Netgalley and Avon and Harper Voyager for the ARC.

🌟🌟🌟 3/5 stars

Unfortunately Yours is the next installment of the A Vine Mess series and is an enemies to lovers marriage of convenience romcom. The story follows Napa heiress Natalie Voss and vineyard owner August Cates. Natalie is down on her luck and desperate for money to redeem herself after losing her job and her fiancé. August is finally accepting that he is terrible at making wine and feels he has let down the memory of his best friend. Thanks to an inheritance clause and a tough loan officer, the two realize that, although they may hate each other, they may be the answer to each other’s problems.

I enjoyed this installment much more than the first book, but unfortunately, this series may not be for me. I loved the storyline for this book, but was never as invested as I wanted to be. However, I did enjoy the third act and the epilogue was especially swoony. I am hopeful for whatever Tessa Bailey writes next!

ARC was provided by the publisher via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

📖𝙐𝙣𝙛𝙤𝙧𝙩𝙪𝙣𝙖𝙩𝙚𝙡𝙮 𝙔𝙤𝙪𝙧𝙨
✍🏻Tessa Bailey
🗓️6.6.23
💘Contemporary Romance
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

This book was adorable! It brought the banter and all the laughs, but packed the emotions too, with themes of anxiety, PTSD, and family struggles. Bailey also brought the spice! 🌶️

𝘸𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘵𝘰 𝘦𝘹𝘱𝘦𝘤𝘵
💞enemies to lovers
🥮cinnamon roll hero
🍷romantic Napa Valley setting
💍marriage of convenience

Natalie and August were such great characters. We get a glimpse of the dynamic between Natalie and August in Secretly Yours, but it was so fun to see them shine in Unfortunately Yours.

I loved August, a former NAVY seal who is just a big sexy sweetheart who loves hard and falls first. Their banter was hilarious, but their mutual attraction is undeniable.

*many thanks to Avon and Netgalley for the gifted copy

Loved every second of my time reading this book. I really enjoyed the first one this one is even better. I have never read a marriage of convenience book before and this sold me on the trope. I fell in love with both August and Natalie, the way they bantered and teased each other in and out of bed was everything! I could not get enough of them or this book.

August Cates, Ex-Navy Seal, was trying to honor his best friends wish of opening a winery and brewing award winning wine. Natalie Vos is trying to get her trust fund so she can go back to New York and get her reputation back after a disastrous failure at the company she worked for. In order to get her trust fund she must convince the same man who August needs to convince to give him a business loan. Of course the only solution is to get married.

I loved the characters, the misunderstandings on the way to falling in love, and the changing family dynamics. The author has obviously learned a lot about how to make wine or had a great tutor. Very interesting.

#HarperCollinsPublishers #RomCom #AugustAndNatalie #winery #NavySeal #FamilyConflict #MenaceTheCat

I was so excited to read this, I love Tessa Bailey and this did not disappoint. I loved the story and the humor. Plus the cat!

4.5 - “Bottom line, he knew in his bones that in fifty years, he’d still want to look at her face.”

Listen, August Cates is EVERYTHING. I haven’t felt so strongly about a book boyfriend in a while and Tessa Bailey absolutely delivered here.

I love a marriage of convenience trope, but this flipped it on its head and gave it a fresh perspective. From the beginning, we know August has it bad for Natalie. Their banter is so good that I was giddy while I was reading. The tension between them is electric and I could not get enough. They are so well matched and everything between them feels so genuine.

After Secretly Yours, I loved getting more about Natalie and her struggles. She feels left out of the family business, even though she’s been chasing success in New York. The deeper we get into her character, it’s clear that she just wants to be included and looked at as a vital piece of her family. I loved hearing more about her struggles in New York and what caused her to return to St. Helena. I felt like we got a full fleshed out character who experiences exceptional growth by the end.

August is the star of this book, though. He wants nothing more than to love and protect Natalie. I always love getting chapters from the man’s perspective and August is such a swoon. His storyline is so heart-wrenching. He is terrible at making wine, but the reason behind it is so sweet and genuine. He wants to honor his best friend and fallen soldier, Sam, by opening the winery he never got the chance to. When August and Natalie finally start to understand each other, they open up in ways that they’ve kept hidden and it really is so beautiful.

This is the perfect sweet and steamy romance for summer.

Unfortunately Yours was sent to me as an ARC and I squealed with delight when I was approved! Tessa Bailey has become a staple in my bookshelves over the years due to her wit, snarky banter amongst characters, and funny, relatable love stories.

Unfortunately Yours is the second book in her A Vine Mess series. The first book, Secretly Yours, sucked me in and introduced us to the eventual main characters of Unfortunately Yours, Natalie Vos and August Cates. The series is set in beautiful St. Helena, CA and includes lots of wine, bad decisions, and laugh out loud moments. I had fun reading this series imagining the beautiful vineyards and sleepy town. I even looked up a few photos for inspiration.

I thought that the UY storyline was more predictable than SY, but that really didn’t detract me from loving this book. I am ALWAYS cheering for the main characters to get together and so when you add enemies to lovers, and fake marriage, I’m all in, no questions asked.

Natalie Vos is a hilarious character. Her banter with August kept me laughing and I had a perpetual smile on my face reading this book. August Cates had me rolling my eyes and chuckling along side Natalie - his goofy, loving personality made it easy to root for him throughout.

The best part of the book? Menace! I have a soft spots for cats and this was just icing on the cake for me.

For the Tessa Bailey fans, read this book! There are just enough call backs to SY (Lavinia and her English humor), steamy encounters, and rom-com situations to make this book a joy to read

🍷Unfortunately Yours🍇
By Tessa Bailey

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️💫
🌶️🌶️🌶️

What I Loved:
-Oh boy this one was spicy 🌶️!
-I really enjoyed the banter! The enemies to lovers really shined through. Their interactions had me laughing out loud.
-swoony masculine jellyroll MMC with a cat, yes please.
-Natalie was a great FMC, strong, smart and flawed.

What didn’t work for me:
-As a military spouse, I find some of the military stuff to be cringe, but that’s just me 😂.

Thank you to @avonbooks and @tessabaileyisanauthor for the ARC copy of this book

Move over Brendan and Fox, I’ve got a new Tessa Bailey book husband; August freaking Cates where have you been all my life?!

Queen Tessa has really really really nailed this enemies to lovers romance. The snarling, wine throwing, insult dripping banter had me laughing so dang hard! Natalie needs to marry to gain access to her trust fund and August needs to hitch onto Natalie’s wine dynasty family name to secure a small business loan for his own fledging winery he opened in memory of his best friend Sam. Somehow they both find themselves in a marriage of convenience and all August, always the hype man, says to Natalie before walking down the aisle “Your tits look insane.” 😂.
Watching these two argue and make up and support each other and fall deeply in love was pure JOY! There’s a bow-tie wearing cat named Menace, pranks galore, axe throwing competitions, loads of make up banging, and even a swift water rescue (6’4 tree trunk thighs retired Navy SEAL August freaking Cates in drenched sweatpants). But the best part was August and his LOVE for his girl, his wife, his Natalie.

💟”If the key to her happiness was at the bottom of the ocean, he’d strap on some flippers and goggles to dive down and get it. If she showed any signs of illness, even a common cold, he would consider bringing her to the ER. If she asked him to dress like Zack Morris at Halloween so she could dress like Kelly Kapowski . . . he’d already have suggested it first. Did all of that equal love? To him? Yes. He loved her. Really, really bad.”💟

Thank you SO much to NetGalley for the e-arc and Avon Books for my physical ARC in exchange for my honest review!

Golden retriever himbo alert. August Cates, the MMC in Tessa Bailey's newest rom-com, is so stupidly gone for Natalie, the FMC, I CANNOT STAND IT.

"Unfortunately Yours" is an enemies-to-lovers, marriage of convenience, he-loved-her-the-whole-time, bomb of glorious banter, sexy scenes, and obsessively sweet love. Natalie and August start off with their walls up and constantly picking at each other's insecurities, but when they both run into cash flow problems, they hatch a marriage plan to access trust fund money to solve all their problems. Cue the "fake relationship" and forced living together shenanigans.

Even though these are classic romance tropes, Tessa Bailey has a way of making them feel fresh and unpredictable. And soooo funny, like un-hinged funny, some of the things August and Natalie say to each other.

Warning for military copaganda: August is an ex-Navy SEAL and it is mentioned throughout the book.

Like Tessa Bailey's other books, this is just a fun, cute, rom-com. Her books, although not the most realistic, touch on real life issues, have humor, frustration and love. They are perfect summer reads - so definitely add this on to your list.

Natalie Vos finds herself back home in Napa after she loses her job and fiance. In order to return to her life in NYC, she needs her trust fund, which unfortunately she can't touch until she is employed AND married. Enter August Cates, a vineyard owner who is terrible at making wine, despite his determination to make his late best friend proud. He and Natalie want to kill each other and secretly kiss each other. August was denied a bank loan and will have to shut the vineyard down - until Natalie decides to propose. Will their fake marriage fool those around them? Will they survive living under the same roof - or will their attraction take control?

Thank you Netgalley and Avon for my advanced reader copy.

Just went through a break up & genuinely was not in the mood to read a romance book. Honestly did not want to THINK about men or love or romance. I pushed through and still ended up giggling, smiling, and pining for August.

This was a great summer read by the pool!

The book is about a wine connoisseur and a former Navy Seal who ends up in the wine business due to the death of his best friend. On a mission, he realized that he’s not great at the process of wine making and loses all his money in the endeavor. Natalie, who is cut out for this lost all her money due to a shaky agreement in New York, IN COMES A FAKE MARRIAGE.

Now both people that absolutely detest each other, but cannot deny the attraction between the two are now living in the same home with a grumpy cat, a trust fund/ loan officer breathing down their neck, and all of St.Helena breathing down their necks.

This was an absolute ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ read for me. Pre- order it now! Go Tessa Bailey!

Marriage of convenice and sorta enemies to lovers? Yes!

Natalie comes from the Vos wine family. She has worked in NYC for years but a job firing and engagement breakup has her back home and feeling a bit lost.

August, former SEAL, is trying - and let's face it, spectacularly failing - at starting a winery which was the dream of his best friend lost in battle.

When they two collide it's not fireworks, it's a grenade. They are explosive. There are strong feelings, but are they love or hate?

Circumstances bring Natalie to ask August to marry her, in a marriage of convenience that will be beneficial to them both.

But what happens when feelings start getting real?

I liked the first book but Natalie and August were even better in my opinion. Their banter was amazing and the sparks ignited when they even looked at each other.

Many thanks to Netgalley and Harper Voyager/Avon for an ARC and to Harper Collins for a lovely finished copy in exchange for my honest review!

Thank you @avonbooks for the #gifted copy of UNFORTUNATELY YOURS!

Oh my gosh I love August Cates. I’m such a sucker for stories where the man falls first and August falls hard and fast for Natalie Vos. This man would do ANYTHING for her.

Their banter was so fire. I loved how they would bicker like cats and dogs but the second anyone said anything remotely insulting about the other in their presence, they would go full attack dog and defend each other.

And while they bickered and pushed each other’s buttons, they moment they realized that a particular barb was actually covering a hurt or a trauma, they would apologize and work to understand that hurt.

Basically I’m just a sucker for couples with good communication skills and actually work to understand their partners.

UNFORTUNATELY YOURS comes out June 6!

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/5295140049
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