Monday, August 19, 2019

Fix Her Up (Hot & Hammered #1) by Tessa Bailey

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A brand new romantic comedy from New York Times bestseller Tessa Bailey!

Georgette Castle’s family runs the best home renovation business in town, but she picked balloons instead of blueprints and they haven’t taken her seriously since. Frankly, she’s over it. Georgie loves planning children’s birthday parties and making people laugh, just not at her own expense. She’s determined to fix herself up into a Woman of the World... whatever that means.

Phase one: new framework for her business (a website from this decade, perhaps?)

Phase two: a gut-reno on her wardrobe (fyi, leggings are pants.)

Phase three: updates to her exterior (do people still wax?)

Phase four: put herself on the market (and stop crushing on Travis Ford!)

Living her best life means facing the truth: Georgie hasn’t been on a date since, well, ever. Nobody’s asking the town clown out for a night of hot sex, that’s for sure. Maybe if people think she’s having a steamy love affair, they’ll acknowledge she’s not just the “little sister” who paints faces for a living. And who better to help demolish that image than the resident sports star and tabloid favorite?

Travis Ford was major league baseball’s hottest rookie when an injury ended his career. Now he’s flipping houses to keep busy and trying to forget his glory days. But he can’t even cross the street without someone recapping his greatest hits. Or making a joke about his… bat. And then there's Georgie, his best friend’s sister, who is not a kid anymore. When she proposes a wild scheme—that they pretend to date, to shock her family and help him land a new job—he agrees. What’s the harm? It’s not like it’s real. But the girl Travis used to tease is now a funny, full-of-life woman and there’s nothing fake about how much he wants her...


Source: borrowed from Hoopla audio


The scene opens with Georgie giving Travis a much-needed reality check. He's returned to his hometown after a career-ending injury, wallowing in self-pity and numbing his senses by drinking the days away. Since she's known him forever, Georgie knows that Travis is better than all the media gossip or rumours floating around. He's been an unofficial part of the Castle family for years. Never mind her unrequited crush on him. What matters is that he picks himself up and finds his purpose again. Travis can't believe that little Georgie is now this feisty, insistent woman in front of him. She gives him real talk without sugar-coating anything. He actually sobers up and gets a temporary job working for the Castle family business in home renovations. It'll keep him busy until he decides his next move. Except that people in town won't let him forget that he used to be a baseball player or that his glory days are over. Worse off, he's only seen as a womanizer - a label he once wore so proudly. These days he doesn't want to be anyone's joke or plaything but no one else has gotten that memo except Georgie. She sees Travis and knows he's hurting. She might have an idea of what it feels like to not be taken seriously. As a birthday clown, Georgie is living her best life, doing something she loves by bringing happiness to people. But people see clown and think that's all she has to offer. Just the youngest Castle sibling with a weird business and nothing more. It's time for an image makeover so she convinces Travis that if they pretend to date, they could change people's views of them. They'd both be taken more seriously and it would help them with their respective career ambitions.

The chemistry between Georgie and Travis is off the charts! She's sexy without even trying and she drives him crazy in all the good ways. But most importantly, she challenges him to be better, and that's what's been missing in his life. Georgie sees him as a person and he sees her as not the youngest Castle sibling like everyone else, but a smart, successful woman. She sees a situation she's unhappy with - her business, for example - and rather than complain about it, she's proactively seeking ways to improve it. Her self-motivation inspires him and before Travis knows it, he's falling in love. 

Fix Her Up is adorable from start to finish. It's funny, touching and truthful at crucial moments. Travis is great but honestly, Georgie steals the show here. She's the kind of person I'd love to be besties with because she's inclusive, supportive and full of life. I listened to the audiobook and I thought the narrator, Charlotte North, captured Georgie's personality perfectly. If you're looking for a feel-good, uplifting and sexy read, Fix Her Up should be your next pick!

~ Bel


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