Secretly Yours was good... Unfortunately Yours was great!

Natalie, who we met in Secretly Yours, is trapped in St. Helena while trying to put some space between her and her missteps in New York. When she becomes frustrated and restless at her families vineyard, she decides she needs to do whatever it takes to get the necessary funds, her trust fund, and make her way back to the city. Unfortunately, the terms of her trust fund release include being married and employed. Natalie's best option for marriage, August, is also her worst option for peace and quiet. Conveniently, August could also benefit from adding Natalie's family legacy to his business. But can they stomach each other enough to convince everyone or will death do them part when they forced under the same roof?

This book was soooooo fun. I literally laughed out loud multiple times. The attraction and build up were great. I loved Natalie in the first book so I had a feeling I would love her in this. It was wonderful seeing her grow and develop as the book went on. And clearly August was the perfect match to help her along. I was a little disappointed in how often August was made into an idiot meathead though. These two are definitely my favorite couple that I have read from Bailey.

As always, thank you to NetGalley, the publisher, and Tessa Bailey for my copy of this in exchange for my honest opinion!! <3

Wow, wow, wow! Tessa Bailey hit it out of the park with this one. I love a good marriage of convenience trope but sometimes they can go wrong. This one did a phenomenal job of making the tension feel real but not gimmick.

I’m a big fan of Tessa Bailey and while this wasn’t the best book of hers, I still liked it. August was a fun character but his reluctance to let anyone help with his wine started to frustrate me at times. It had the signature Tessa Bailey heat and dirty talk which I loved and I love the Napa setting.

My favorite Tessa Bailey book so far!! I laughed out loud, I cringed when things went to far in the banter, I smiled when it was the perfect amount of banter, the spice 🔥 😍 and I was teary at the end of the book. It really just boils down that we all just want to be seen and valued……. Natalie ……. We see you girl.

As someone who reads a lot of Tessa Bailey books, this followed the formula you can come to expect from her. Quick dialogue, steamy love scenes, opposites attract, etc. However, I much preferred Secretly Yours, the first book of this series. As with many of Bailey's series, the strongest characters are usually in the first book and the follow ups struggle to create more developed storylines for the supporting characters. August's overwhelming attraction to Natalie felt forced and their "fighting" was really mean, there are some words you can't come back from, and the switch when August decided to stop making fun of Natalie because he realized it hurt her was too abrupt and, also, kind of obvious. Their love story was just a little clunky and rushed. Not to say I didn't enjoy the book; the setting is great and when the fighting stopped, Natalie and Vos became a couple to root for.

Likeable, fun characters. Witty banter. Enemies to lovers. Wine country. Sweet and spicy. What's not to love here? Overall another fun read by Tessa Bailey.

Thank you #netgalley for this ARC. Oh wow, I loved this book. I couldn’t put it down once I started! Tessa Bailey may be my new favorite author!!

I enjoyed this second book in the series. Thanks NetGalley for the advanced copy. #NetGalley #UnfortunatelyYours

I have read nearly every Tessa Bailey book and have loved them all but Unfortunately Yours takes the cake. August and Natalie were everything! The chemistry and connection was absolutely perfect. Fake marriage, enemies to lovers, witty banter, it had everything to make this my favorite book by her.

A huge thank you to the publisher, Tessa Bailey, and Netgalley for this ARC!

I enjoyed Secretly Yours, the first book in this duology, but there's just something about enemies to lovers and a marriage of convenience that I absolutely love. The chemistry between Natalie and August was super sexy.

I don't know if I liked these two as much as the Bellinger sisters duology but it's definitely worth the read.

Due to the controversy over this author I will not be continuing to read this story. I do hope that nothing further happens with this author and that she can say something to mitigate the situation.

Tessa Bailey books are excellent and this one is no exception. It is part of a series and while I imagine you could easily read as a standalone, I think you would get more of an emotional impact of the family dynamics if you read the first book in the series and then this one. Both characters seem real and have real personal issues to get over, but these two lonely and shut off people find they make an excellent team. Hot and heartwarming.

When in the acknowledgments I read “enemies-to-lovers book” & that these were some of her favorite characters she’s ever written…I couldn’t wait to dive in! The first sentence, “For as long as August Cates could remember, his duck had ruined everything”. Okay, Tessa Bailey…you got me, I’m listening.

This is a marriage of convenience love story…and I loved it! August is my kinda man. Protective, alpha ex-Seal. There’s nothing to not to love. Natalie was fun too. Great story, loads of chemistry. Read it. You won’t regret it.

NetGalley & this author/publisher provided the ARC I read for review purposes. All opinions in this review are my own.

I really enjoyed the first book, It Happened One Summer, so I had high hopes for this one. But I just couldn't connect. I think my main struggle was the communication was less snarky banter and more mean and hurtful. Maybe I'll pick it up again and see if it was just me. Won't deter me from purchasing Bailey's books though!

I loved this book so much! Tessa Bailey really has a way with words like no other. The characters in this book are A+++. Natalie is an enchanting mixture of tough and soft, and I don't really know how else to explain it. This will forever be one author I automatically click on, one author I will always recommend.

Thank you Tessa Bailey and NetGalley for sharing this advanced copy with me for an honest opinion/review.

I liked the first book in this duology, Secretly Yours, but I really loved this one! It was so much more fun and chemistry between Natalie and August was absolutely insane!

In Secretly Yours we meet Julian's sister, Natalie, who had essentially ran away from Napa to become a trader at a top firm in NY. But after a trade went south and she lost a lot of money for her clients and firm, her fiancé broke up with her and she moved back home to lick her wounds, and figure out her next move. Then she meets August, a new vintner in Napa with the worst tasting wine. After judging August's awful wine in a competition in Unfortunately Yours, we immediately see the chemistry between the two in their banter and witty one liners at each other. When Natalie finds out she needs to get married to access her trust fund, August seems to be the perfect participant for a marriage of convenience. This idea was perfectly planned out, except their feelings kept coming up, but in the absolute best way!

I love that August brought back and brought out Natalie's playful side! August was such a charmer and just a genuinely good/nice guy, but still had enough gruffness to not completely be put in the friend zone. His playfulness mixed with his protective and attentive side was exactly the right fit for Natalie, The spice in this book is pretty great, too. It's not smutty, but not tame either, and I absolutely love that Bailey draws the spicy scenes out for several pages, not to mention the sexually tense build up that is basically foreplay prior to the sexy times. :)

I had such a fun reading experience with this book with multiple laugh out loud moments. I highly recommend this one, even if you don't read the first one.

3.5/5 stars

Very sexy, but I wasn’t a huge fan of the character development aspect. It felt shallow. Usually, I’m more than good with Bailey’s semi-shallow characters, but this time I didn’t jive with it.

Hilarious dialogue
Sexy dialogue
Hilariously sexy dialogue

I knew I was going to like this book from the small glimpses of the potential combustible nature of August and Natalie as a couple in Secretly Yours, but that did not prepare me for how much I LOVED reading this book by Tessa Bailey. Unfortunately Yours is one of her best!

Thank you NetGalley and Avon for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

When Tessa Bailey turns her supporting characters into main characters it just doesn’t work for me. Like I really enjoyed reading It Happened One Summer, but I wasn’t able to finish Hook, Line and Sinker. I was able to finish this book, but I had to push myself through the last 100 pages or so. The interactions between August and Natalie became very repetitive - I hate you, tear my clothes off and ravage me, I hate you, I love you, I’m moving back to NY, I can’t live without you… They just didn’t do it for me in the same way as Julian and Hallie. Thank you to NetGalley & the publisher for the eARC.

This was a fun little spicy read. It felt a little more natural than the other book in the series, and I was pretty vested in the characters.