Hook, Line, and Sinker: A Novel

Tessa Bailey

Mar 2022 · HarperAudio · Narrated by Lauren Sweet

About this audiobook

AN INSTANT #1 NEW YORK TIMES AND #1 USA TODAY BESTSELLER

In the follow-up to It Happened One Summer, Tessa Bailey delivers another deliciously fun rom-com about a former player who accidentally falls for his best friend while trying to help her land a different man...

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, line, 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?

Ratings and reviews

4 Stars! This is book 2 in the ‘Bellinger Sisters’ series and can be read as a standalone. I missed book 1 and would’ve liked to know how the main characters met and got their nicknames but it wasn’t anything I absolutely needed to know before reading this one. This was a really cute read. However, I couldn’t really get into the book because I thought the main male character, Fox, had stupid hang ups about relationships. I kept thinking “seriously? Get over it already man!” and I couldn’t get past that. I kept waiting for Hannah, the main female, to say something to that extent but she has the patience of a saint! Ha! Still an entertaining book though. *I received this book at no charge & I voluntarily left this review.*

Oh, how many ways I loved this book, so, so, so many!!! The best part of the book was the characters, Fox and Hannah. As the story goes, they hit all the emotions, as they open up to themselves and to each other. The things they held so true and for so long and for so hard, start to crumble away. They are lost on how to figure out to tell the other how they see them, why those truths they think they know, have to fall away. It is a tumultuous journey, and we get to go on it with them, to open up and see things in a different way. Even the heat between them, they don’t see it for what it is and resist it. Even the feelings that they have for each other, they deny it and disregard it. But when they do finally bring it all together, it is absolute magic <3

sweet, nice and girly

About the author

#1 New York Times bestselling author Tessa Bailey can solve all problems except for her own, so she focuses those efforts on stubborn, fictional blue-collar men and loyal, lovable heroines. She lives on Long Island avoiding the sun and social interactions, then wonders why no one has called. Dubbed the “Michelangelo of dirty talk,” by Entertainment Weekly, Tessa writes with spice, spirit, swoon and a guaranteed happily ever after.