Piper Bellinger is a spoiled social media influencer who has been feeling like, “I can be in a room full of people that I know and still not feel like I belong.” After an out-of-control party lands Piper in jail, Piper’s stepfather sentences Piper to run her late father’s bar in a small beach town for three months. When Piper, along with her sister Hannah who insists on coming, arrive, they discover that the bar, which has been taken over by local fishermen and a rude sea captain named Brendan, is in a state of disrepair. Determined to prove the naysayers wrong (and maybe earn an early ticket home), Piper gets to work renovating and reopening the bar. But everywhere she turns, she runs into Brendan—the two are polar opposites but they have an undeniable infatuation with each other. The longer Piper stays in Westport, the more she reconnects to her past. Will Piper return to her glamorous life in L.A. or will the small fishing town (and the handsome local sea captain) capture her heart?
It Happened One Summer is a slow burn contemporary romance with quite a few spicy scenes! The vibe of this book reminded me a lot of one of my favourite shows, Schitt’s Creek; the character illustrations on the cover of the book even look like Alexis and Mutt! I would also recommend this book to fans of Sweet Home Alabama and Virgin River. Readers of Talia Hibbert, Alexandria Bellefleur, and Sally Thorne are also sure to love It Happened One Summer. This book could be characterised as an “enemies to lovers” trope as Piper and Brendan are total opposites that start off on the wrong foot. But I think that best way to characterise It Happened One Summer is opposites attract with a spoiled and chic partier from L.A. meeting a rugged and stubborn fisherman from a small town. Some themes present in It Happened One Summer include beauty of simplicity, change versus tradition, death, facing reality, family, growing up, love and heartbreak, identity, empowerment, inner and outer strength, isolation and loneliness, materialism and wealth, fame, perseverance, and beauty.
I love how Piper spends most of the book “trying to figure out what to do when no one is watching and wondering if maybe that’s the stuff that actually matters.” This book really highlights the phoniness of social media and the importance of love and family. Moving to Westport, being financially cut off, and connecting with Brendan really make Piper question her extravagant lifestyle, as well as to think about what she truly wants (and deserves), and to learn to live in the real world. I really appreciated the main takeaway of the book: “what she’d thought before was living life to the fullest had actually been living life for other people to watch…Now though? She was participating in her own life. Not just posing and pretending”. It was also great reading about Piper and Brendan’s “opposites attract” romance story, especially when Brendan starts to “court” Piper by building her a pergola. The pair made each other grow outside of their comfort zones as Piper falls further in love with Brendan, she also falls further in love with Westport. Lastly, the ending was very satisfying, and I loved the inclusion of the epilogue that takes place post happily ever after.
At the end of the novel, Tessa Bailey announces that a spin-off novel featuring Piper’s sister Hannah and Brendan’s friend Fox (tentatively entitled Hook, Line, and Sinker) is coming out in early 2022! I have already added this book to my TBR and can’t wait to read about Hannah’s story and (hopefully) get some peeks into what happens with Brendan and Piper in the future.
To be honest, this book was fantastic and there wasn’t a whole lot that I would change. Some small cons were that the book was slow to start, and the first few chapters were easy to predict based off the Goodreads description.
Overall, It Happened One Summer was one of my favourite books of 2021 so far! It was a super fast read for me and I would definitely recommend it to friends.
It Happened One Summer is available from Amazon, Book Depository, and other good book retailers, like your local bookstore, as of July 13th 2021.
Will you be picking up It Happened One Summer? Tell us in the comments below!
Synopsis | Goodreads
Tessa Bailey is back with a Schitt’s Creek-inspired rom-com about a Hollywood “It Girl” who’s cut off from her wealthy family and exiled to a small Pacific Northwest beach town… where she butts heads with a surly, sexy local who thinks she doesn’t belong.
Piper Bellinger is fashionable, influential, and her reputation as a wild child means the paparazzi are constantly on her heels. When too much champagne and an out-of-control rooftop party lands Piper in the slammer, her stepfather decides enough is enough. So he cuts her off, and sends Piper and her sister to learn some responsibility running their late father’s dive bar… in Washington.
Piper hasn’t even been in Westport for five minutes when she meets big, bearded sea captain Brendan, who thinks she won’t last a week outside of Beverly Hills. So what if Piper can’t do math, and the idea of sleeping in a shabby apartment with bunk beds gives her hives. How bad could it really be? She’s determined to show her stepfather—and the hot, grumpy local—that she’s more than a pretty face.
Except it’s a small town and everywhere she turns, she bumps into Brendan. The fun-loving socialite and the gruff fisherman are polar opposites, but there’s an undeniable attraction simmering between them. Piper doesn’t want any distractions, especially feelings for a man who sails off into the sunset for weeks at a time. Yet as she reconnects with her past and begins to feel at home in Westport, Piper starts to wonder if the cold, glamorous life she knew is what she truly wants. LA is calling her name, but Brendan—and this town full of memories—may have already caught her heart.
