Book Review: Secretly Yours

I love Tessa Bailey books and I read book 1 of her Vine Mess duology, Secretly Yours last week.

Secretly Yours is spicy opposites attract romcom. Hallie Welch is a gardener/landscaper in her small town in Napa Valley. She has a sunny personality, but has been struggling a bit after the passing of her grandmother. When she finds out that Julian Vos, her crush from high school, is back in town and staying at his family’s vineyard she concocts a plan to cross paths with him. Julian is a Stanford professor who decides to take a sabbatical and work on a fiction book. He goes home to his family vineyard to work quietly in the guest house, not knowing that the winery has seen better days. All he wanted was some peace and quiet to work on his writing, but his mother has hired a local gardener to spruce up the outside of the guest house. Hallie thinks that now that she’s working right outside Julian’s house they can reconnect. The problem is he doesn’t remember her since he was a senior when she was a freshman and they really only met once at a party that Julian’s sister, Natalie, threw. One drunken night, Hallie decides to leave him a secret admirer letter on his jogging route. Will Julian find the letter? Will he know it’s from her?

Hallie and Julian are complete opposites with Hallie’s laid back personality and aversion to schedules. Julian needs to stick to routine and schedules to keep his anxiety in check, but something about Hallie has him not minding when things don’t go according to his daily plan. He is drawn to Hallie, but something about his secret admirer has his attention too!

I really enjoyed this book. It’s not my favorite Tessa Bailey and at times it was cheesy, but I loved Hallie and Julian and I thought it was a fun, lighthearted read! I just finished the second book, Unfortunately Yours, that follows Julian’s sister Natalie last night and I loved that one much more. Review coming on that one later in the week!