For me, reading It Happened One Summer by Tessa Bailey was like being hit with a rogue wave: one minute I was causally reading along with my next summer romance novel, next thing I know I was half way through the book and 100% invested.

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Piper Bellinger’s father was killed by a rogue wave while crab fishing when she was 4 years old; he was standing on deck one minute, gone the next. For me, reading It Happened One Summer was like being hit with a rogue wave: one minute I was causally reading along with my next summer romance novel, next thing I know I was half way through the book and 100% invested in Piper, Brendan, Hannah, Opal and Westport.

It Happened One Summer starts off with Piper, an LA wild-child and step-daughter to a wealthy film industry legend: getting dumped, throwing a huge out-of control rooftop party, getting thrown in jail for the night, then being cut off from her step-father’s money and being exiled to her late father’s hometown, Westport (a tiny Pacific Northwest fishing village) for 3 months. Did I mention that her mother hasn’t spoken about her father since she was a child because of her deep grief, Piper hasn’t retuned to Westport since she left at 4 years old and has absolutely no idea what she is in for?

Brendan is a big, bearded sea captain – coincidentally, he captain’s Piper’s late father’s best friend’s old boat, because, you know, small towns. Brendan is also a set-in-his-ways grumpy old (at heart) man with his own past grief weighing on his shoulders and wants nothing to do with the new flashy socialite in town – though certain pieces of his anatomy remind him that he is, in fact, a young man with a lot of life left to live, and *that* particular part of him reaallly wants to get to know her better….

I couldn’t figure out what about this book drew me in so quickly while I was reading, but once finishing I realized it was Piper’s character – which really surprised me as Piper is so close to the COMPLETE opposite to me in many ways. But then I started thinking back to some of the other books I liked recently – The Simple Wild, Wild at Heart, Not the Girl You Marry – and I realized that none of these leading females were like me, but they did all have one thing in common: they were all unapologetically themselves. Yes they did struggle throughout their books to find their places, but in essence they all found ways to get comfortable with the new challenges in their lives, while still keeping the parts of them that make them *them*. For Piper, this means reconciling her love of the spotlight and her flashy LA lifestyle with what truly makes her happy deep down, and figuring out if she can have both.

All in all, was this book fairly predictable? Yes. But did I love going along for the ride and meeting these characters? Hell Yes. I actually pre-ordered the physical copy of this one – I’m excited to be able to shelve it, re-read it, and lend it out to friends when they’d like a good summer read! Or if they are looking for a book about a big, bearded boat captain who is ripped AF and despite a recent lack of sexual partners seems to be very much on top of that dirty talk and need-you-now sex-capades… that IS a little specific but really doesn’t everyone want a little bit of *that guy* in their literary collection, even if we don’t know it yet?!?

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