It Happened One Summer

It Happened One Summer works because its sea captain is wrong about the woman he thinks he has already sized up.

I am suspicious of any romance that offers to improve a glamorous woman by taking away her nice things. There is usually a dreary little lesson about being humbler, preferably in bad shoes. Tessa Bailey comes perilously close to that setup and then gives Piper Bellinger enough appetite, humour, and stubbornness to outrun the punishment. I liked her before she earned anybody's approval. That made all the difference.

Brendan Taggart initially has the air of a man who would file a complaint against decorative cushions. Fine. A grumpy hero needs somewhere to begin. The pleasure of this book is watching his certainty become a liability. He sees a socialite; Bailey asks him to meet an actual person. I had more patience for the romance once I realised it would make him do some of the work.

The premise (no spoilers past Piper arriving in Westport)

Piper is a wealthy Los Angeles socialite whose unruly public image finally exhausts her stepfather. After a rooftop party lands her in trouble, he cuts her off and sends her and her sister to Westport, Washington, to help run the dive bar left by their late father. Piper meets Brendan, a local sea captain who doubts she will last a week away from Beverly Hills. The small town keeps putting them in each other's path, even as Piper tries to understand the place and her own connection to it.

This is the first Bellinger Sisters book, published in 2021. The setup is openly a fish-out-of-water comedy: polished city visitor, working harbour, man with little interest in making his first impression polite. Bailey does not hide the gears. She simply makes the friction pleasant enough that I stopped inspecting them for a while.

What works

Piper's development has a welcome refusal at its centre. She does not need to become a completely different kind of woman to deserve respect. Her taste for attention and beauty can coexist with competence and care. That is a more generous romance arc than a makeover in reverse, where the heroine must abandon every visible pleasure before a man will take her seriously. Bailey lets Piper's confidence be both comic material and a resource.

The setting earns its pages. Westport is a working coastal town rather than an empty postcard built to provide a handsome fisherman. The bar gives Piper something concrete to do, and Brendan's life at sea puts real demands on his time. Their different routines matter more than their superficial opposition. A small town also makes avoidance difficult. One can glare magnificently across a room, but there are only so many rooms.

Bailey is especially good at making attraction feel like a problem two people are actively trying to solve. Brendan's reserve is legible in the way he approaches work and responsibility; Piper answers with movement and improvisation. Their banter has pace because it is not merely a contest for the better insult. Each exchange tests an assumption. The early joke is that he expects her to fail. The better joke is how much energy he spends watching for it.

There is a tactile confidence to the romantic writing. Bailey knows when to linger on the pause before contact and when to let the conversation speed up. The heat is substantial, but the more effective turn is emotional: Brendan's desire becomes interesting when it begins to challenge his habit of deciding what Piper can withstand. I was fond of him. I also wanted to confiscate his first draft of every opinion.

What's polarising

The opening asks you to spend time with a deliberately extravagant heroine. If Piper's wealth and public antics irritate you on principle, the book will test your patience before it has a chance to earn it back. I think Bailey is right to leave her edges visible. Still, the comic rhythm occasionally leans on the contrast between her Los Angeles life and Westport's practical routines so hard that you can see the punchline coming from across the harbour.

Brendan's possessive streak may also divide readers. I read much of it as part of Bailey's deliberately heightened fantasy, but the moments when concern slides towards control are not my favourites. Your tolerance for an alpha hero should be high enough to enjoy the intensity while retaining the right to roll your eyes. Romance does not require me to surrender that right at the door.

And the pacing is fast. The emotional change sometimes arrives with the efficiency of a boat turning in a very narrow channel. If you want a long, painstaking courtship, the novel may seem to move from irritation to conviction at a speed the characters have not fully explained. I believed their attraction immediately. I believed their certainty rather later.

The Brendan of it

Brendan is most appealing when he is useful without presenting usefulness as a moral trump card. His competence at sea and attachment to Westport give him a life beyond being a large, gruff obstacle in Piper's path. The book knows that capability is attractive. It also knows that a capable man can be confidently, gloriously wrong.

His best function in the romance is to make Piper's new life more complicated, not to certify that it is valid. When he listens, the story opens. When he decides for her, it narrows. That distinction is why I could enjoy his worst scowl and still root for Piper to ignore it. The man could stand to spend a week being judged by his wardrobe. He might develop a little empathy by Tuesday.

Spice and heat

Heat: 4 of 5, explicit open door. Bailey writes on-page sexual intimacy with considerable confidence, so do not pick this up expecting a sweet closed-door holiday romance. The spice is tied to the couple's push and pull, though it can sometimes arrive more quickly than the emotional groundwork. There is also grief around Piper's late father, part of the reason Westport carries more weight than a convenient new address.

The book is an adult romance, and the sexual content is part of its sales pitch as well as its character work. If your favourite romances leave everything at a kiss, the next recommendation might suit you better.

Who it's for

You want a lively heroine who is allowed to like her own reflection, a hero who can navigate water better than his own assumptions, and a small town with something to do besides admire the visitors. You are happy with bold heat and fairly quick emotional escalation. You can tolerate a man who starts by mistaking a handbag for a personality. The novel is especially satisfying if you have ever wanted the supposedly frivolous woman to be given the best lines and the final say.

Books like It Happened One Summer

• The Simple Wild by K.A. Tucker: another city woman meets a stubborn working man while finding a more complicated sense of home.
• Georgie, All Along by Kate Clayborn: a softer, more reflective hometown return with a grouchy man who needs a second look.
• The Tourist Attraction by Sarah Morgenthaler: tourist and grumpy local circle each other in Alaska, with much gentler heat.

Finished the book and not ready to leave? Brendan Taggart is waiting on Fictora.

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