Book Review: Hook, Line, & Sinker

I was more than happy to return to Westport, Washington in Hook, Line, & Sinker, the spinoff book to It Happened One Summer by Tessa Bailey. If you missed it I reviewed It Happened One Summer last month and I absolutely loved it.

It Happened One Summer was about LA socialite, Piper Bellinger, temporarily moving to Westport and falling in love with sea captain, Brendan Taggart. In that novel, Piper’s younger sister, Hannah, went with her and became friends with Brendan’s best friend and skipper, Fox Thornton. During that novel, Hannah and Fox had become friends and went to a record convention together. During the end of It Happened One Summer, Fox left a gift for Hannah on the porch – a Fleetwood Mac record that she had really wanted. Thus begins the start of their novel, Hook, Line, & Sinker.

I loved It Happened One Summer so much that I knew I would like Hook, Line, & Sinker, but I wasn’t sure it could top it. But then I read the beginning of the novel which was pages of back and forth text messages between Hannah and Fox over the course of months starting with Hannah thanking Fox for the record. It was absolutely adorable that I knew the novel was going to be a good one.

In Hook, Line, & Sinker, Hannah who is back in LA, pitches Westport as a filming location to her boss and crush, Sergei, who is a director. When it gets approved she’s happy because she impressed Sergei and will get to go back to Westport to visit her sister. Piper’s future in-laws are going to be visiting though and using the guest room so who does Hannah stay with? No other than the one and only Fox Thornton!

Hannah still has a crush on Sergei, but she can’t help but be excited to stay with Fox because they’ve gotten so close and maybe, possibly, potentially she may have feelings for him? Fox makes it no secret to the reader that he has been thinking of her since he met her, but he has been warned multiple times by Brendan to keep his hands off Hannah because Fox has a reputation for hooking up with lots of women and never actually getting into a relationship.

The novel follows Hannah as she tries to figure out what she wants to do in terms of her career and navigate her growing friendship and feelings for Fox. Fox has a lot of issues from his childhood and past that have formed him as an adult and influenced his behavior in relationships and needs to figure that out. While all this is going on, Fox says he will help Hannah attract Sergei. That always works out, right? lol

What does Hannah want and does Fox fit into that life she envisions for herself? Does Fox think he’s worthy of Hannah?

I loved this book so much and adore Hannah and Fox. It Happened One Summer was a grumpy sunshine novel whereas this one was a friends to lovers, slow burn. Totally different love story, but I still loved it! I’ve seen some people be critical of it and say they didn’t like it as much or that it seemed like a filler story, but I didn’t see it that way. Again, it’s a totally different love story so I don’t think you can fairly compare them and I don’t like when people do that.

When I give star ratings on Good Reads, because it’s required, I give stars based on how I felt about the book and basically how obsessed I was with it. This is a 5 star read in my book!