Hook, Line, and Sinker by Tessa Bailey
King crab fisherman Fox Thornton has a reputation as a sexy, carefree flirt. Everyone knows he’s a guaranteed good time — in bed and out — and that’s exactly how he prefers it. Until he meets Hannah Bellinger. She’s immune to his charm and looks, but she seems to enjoy his…personality? And wants to be friends? Bizarre. But he likes her too much to risk a fling, so platonic pals it is.
Now,Hannah’s in town for work, crashing in Fox’s spare bedroom. She knows he’s a notorious ladies man, but they’re definitely just friends. In fact, she’s nursing a hopeless crush on a colleague and Fox is just the person to help with her lackluster love life. Armed with a few tips from Westport’s resident Casanova, Hannah sets out to catch her coworker’s eye… yet the more time she spends with Fox, the more she wants him instead. As the line between friendship and flirtation begins to blur, Hannah can’t deny she loves everything about Fox, but she refuses to be another notch on his bedpost.
Living with his best friend should have been easy. Except now she’s walking around in a towel, sleeping right across the hall, and Fox is fantasizing about waking up next to her for the rest of his life and.. and.. man overboard! He’s fallen for her, hook, lie, and sinker. Helping her flirt with another guy is pure torture, but maybe if Fox can tackle his inner demons and show Hannah he’s all in, she’ll choose him instead?
~~~~~
I was so excited to read this book after the first one was so good so to say I was disappointed is an understatement. I like these characters, and I love this setting. I just found Fox and Hannah’s story to be so lacking in comparison to Piper and Brendan’s. Hannah was a great character and I loved that music was a central focus of this story but I felt like we didn’t dive nearly as deep into her character as we did with Piper. I felt like I didn’t know her and, because of this, her character felt shallow to me. Fox isn’t what I expected. I liked him and his vulnerabilities but his reactions to things seemed a little far-fetched at times and I found it hard to visualize him as real/relatable.
Hannah and Fox connected the summer previously when he ran interference so that his BFF Brendan could get closer to Hannah’s sister. They’ve texted for months since but never had phone calls and somehow, this has translated to them assuming they’ve built enough of a relationship over text to know each other inside and out? Not buying it. Most of the premise of their interactions in this book is also supposedly hinged on making her datable to her colleague crush… but that crush lasts like a few chapters and he only gives her advice once so…false advertising? I felt like they didn’t know each other that well, then spent a few days together before he went on a fishing trip and we’re supposed to believe this epic love story that spanned only a few days of them together? With barely any dialogue between the two of them that wasn’t weird tension or Fox having a pity party? I did not like it one bit. It felt like insta-love which is not my trope.
Now let’s get to the interactions. There were barely any. If Fox and Hannah were together he was either trying to get into her pants even though vowing not to moments before, pushing her away, or monologuing inside his head. Then we jump forward in time and have Fox or Hannah again inner monologuing saying that they’d “discussed this" or “that” last night. Well ok, let’s see it then. Don’t brush over all their interactions. I got really bored reading 3 pages of internal thoughts as well, and the really traumatized nature of Fox’s thoughts bummed me out. Hard. I went into a romance in order to feel happy. Not sad and frustrated.
I gave it 2.5 stars because I love Westport and I really wanted to love these characters but I didn’t enjoy the story that much overall and really wished for something a little more exciting.