Secretly Yours by Tessa Bailey

A Vine Mess #1

Rating: ★★★☆☆

Dates Read: 6/4/23 - 6/7/23

*slight spoilers maybe? it depends on what you classify as a spoiler. proceed with caution if you haven't read this*

    When Hallie Welch was just fourteen, she found herself falling head over heels for Julian Vos, after they almost kissed in the dark vineyards of his family's winery. Now, he's returned to their small town. When Hallie gets hired to give the gardens on the Vos estate a makeover, she can't help but wonder if this opportunity will finally lead to that long-awaited smooch. But the grumpy professor she encounters is a far cry from the teenager she remembers, and their polar opposite personalities clash spectacularly. After a wine-fueled girls' night, Hallie wakes up with a lingering feeling of recklessness, only to remember the drunken letter she wrote as a secret admirer to Julian.

    Taking a sabbatical from his Ivy League job, Julian has grand plans of writing a novel. However, Hallie's presence as she tends to the garden just outside his window proves to be the ultimate distraction. She's eccentric, always running late, frequently covered in dirt—and to make matters worse, she's incredibly beautiful. Julian finds himself utterly captivated by her, unable to concentrate on anything else. Until he finds a secret admirer letter sent by a woman from his past.

"All time is not created equal. I know that now. Time with you is the most substantial of all. I'll probably never be able to stop counting the minutes that we're apart, but the ones when we're together, I'm leaving room for anything."

    This is the first Tessa Bailey book that I've read in a really long time, but it was so good to jump back into an author I know I love. This book is SUPER spicy, which is to be expected from Bailey. I enjoyed it enough to read it, but it wasn't a home run for me. I wish that the Corked/UnCorked rivalry had been fleshed out more, but honestly, I think there were too many side plots happening to really do anything with any of them. Like the secret admirer letters.. they basically had nothing to do with the book at all? But the synopsis makes it seem like it's going to be this huge plot point. 

    I didn't really connect with the main characters, and I was more intrigued by Natalie, Julian's sister, and our MC for book two than either of them. Hallie fell flat for me, she was almost too quirky. I prefer Julian out of the two but honestly..it's hard to connect to his character, who felt very developed when he was talking about her huge boobs in her polka dot bra and adding masturbating to Hallie on his to-do list. He barely even spoke to her, and it just felt way too creepy for me. 

    I understand it's a romance, so I did start to become more invested when they really started to develop a relationship. I liked it, I like most of Bailey's books, but it wasn't a hit for me. I do however have a very good feeling about book two, with Natalie and August.