By Gabrielle Kroeger
“Hook, Line, and Sinker” by Tessa Bailey (“It Happened One Summer”) is the second book in “The Bellinger Sisters” duology, and it is in the contemporary romance genre. The first book, “It Happened One Summer,” followed main characters Piper and Brendan’s story. While we saw a bit of Hannah and Fox’s budding romance, they were not the main focus. “Hook, Line, and Sinker” takes place seven months later with Hannah and Fox as the main characters.

Hannah Bellinger works for a movie production company in Los Angeles, and when the director decides Westport, Washington is the perfect place for his new movie, Hannah finds herself back in the small town with nowhere to stay. Fox offers up his spare bedroom, which Hannah gladly accepts. 

Their friendship has been growing over the past seven months and she was excited to see more of him. Fox, however, is known in the small town as a major player and everyone is waiting for him to mess up their friendship and hurt Hannah in the process. Hannah has a crush on her director, and Fox decides the best way to avoid flirting with Hannah is to help her make a move on Sergei. The problem is, Hannah finds herself wanting Fox more, and Sergei less. What happens when the line between friendship and something more starts to blur?

This story is great if you are looking for an enjoyable, friends to lovers romance. There are many tropes commonly found in the romance genre such as slowburn, forced proximity, and the one bed trope. With Hannah and Fox living together, we get to see many scenes between the two that are so awkward they are funny. Bailey does a great job of showing their relationship slowly go from best friends to something more. 

One major issue Bailey talks about is self worth. Fox has been told since he was very young that he was going to be a heartbreaker when he got older. Growing up, he was constantly told he was going to have girls constantly trying to get with him, and it did not help that his dad was the same way. Fox eventually started acting like everyone expected him to and started sleeping with more girls than he could count. He played into this stereotype of the pretty boy because everyone told him that was how he would be. When he meets Hannah, he wants a relationship with her, but he does not think he is what she deserves. Hannah helps him see his self worth throughout the story, and the way Bailey wrote it was beautiful. 

One thing that is very common in romance novels is the author having the couple fight and break up before they get their happy ending. It is overused and sometimes it takes away from the story. Bailey did not include this in “Hook, Line, and Sinker” and it made the story even more enjoyable. Instead of having them break up, we see Hannah and Fox take time to think before talking about their issues. Fox struggles throughout the whole book with wanting to be in this relationship because he wants more for Hannah, and with them communicating, we see his doubts slowly disappearing. 

The epilogue of this book was adorable and it was a great ending to this duology. We see both Hannah and Fox, and Piper and Brenden’s families ten years later. It provided great closure for both books. If you want to read “Hook, Line, and Sinker” it is recommended that you read “It Happened One Summer” first because it will make the setting, and other characters make more sense.

Image from Tessa Bailey via tessabailey.com