Secretly Yours: A Novel

Tessa Bailey

Feb 2023 · Vine Mess Book 1 · Sold by HarperCollins

About this ebook

AN INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

From Tessa Bailey—#1 New York Times bestselling author, TikTok favorite, and "the Michelangelo of dirty talk" (Entertainment Weekly)—comes a spicy small town rom-com about a grumpy professor and the bubbly neighbor he clashes with at every turn...

Hallie Welch fell hard for Julian Vos at fourteen, after they almost kissed in the dark vineyards of his family’s winery. Now the prodigal hottie has returned to Napa Valley, and when Hallie is hired to revamp the gardens on the Vos estate, she wonders if she'll finally get that smooch. But the starchy professor isn’t the teenager she remembers and their polar opposite personalities clash spectacularly.

One wine-fueled girls’ night later, Hallie can’t shake the sense that she did something reckless—and then she remembers the drunken secret admirer letter she left for Julian. Oh shit.

On sabbatical from his ivy league job, Julian plans to write a novel. But having Hallie gardening right outside his window is the ultimate distraction. She’s eccentric, chronically late, often literally covered in dirt—and so unbelievably beautiful, he can’t focus on anything else. Until he finds an anonymous letter sent by a woman from his past.

Even as Julian wonders about this admirer, he’s sucked further into Hallie’s orbit. Like the flowers she plants all over town, Hallie is a burst of color in Julian’s grayscale life. For a man who irons his socks and runs on tight schedules, her sunny chaotic energy makes zero sense. But there’s something so familiar about her... and her very presence is turning his world upside down.

"Tessa Bailey is the queen of rom-coms. Long may she reign!" — Julie Murphy, #1 New York Times bestselling author of A Merry Little Meet Cute

Ratings and reviews

It is the first book I read by this author and unfortunately I don't have a very good impression. The action was non-existent, it was getting very boring😭😭 The fact that she waited so many years for him and he didn't remember who she was is a red flag😔. After that they weren't really romantic, their romance having no connection. Unfortunately I skipped pages because nothing was happening. Their sex is awful, I felt like it was porn written by an obsessed man(Especially when he was obsessed with her breasts and it seems that's what he fell in love with)🤷.

More than spicy with vocabulary to match, Secretly Yours is a delectable story of wine, a woman, and anxiety. The wine-Vos Vineyards. The Woman-Halli. The anxiety-the plague of Julian Vos. Halli is impetuous and free. Julian is uptight and controlled. Somehow these polar opposites rock each other’s world. So much keeps them from a completely bonafide relationship that time holds in its hands. I voluntarily read an advanced copy of this book, All thoughts and opinions are my own.

Hallie and Julian’s story in Secretly Yours by Tessa Bailey, book one in the Vine Mess series is a wonderful, heartwarming, opposites, friends-to-lovers story. Hallie Welch is a bubbly, full of sunshine, chaotic gardener that has had the biggest crush on Julian, who doesn't remember her. Julian Vos is the rigid professor, obsessively organized and hates the unexpected, which is why he has a very strict schedule that he never breaks. Will it be possible for these two totally opposite people to fa

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.