Fix Her Up: A Novel: 1 (Hot and Hammered, 1)

Product Information

This is a fake dating romance between a “good girl” who is the baby of the family and not taken seriously (not helped by the fact that she’s an actual professional clown) and a “bad boy” former baseball player who has a history of hookups. They have known each other since childhood and she has always harbored a crush on him. Throughout the entire book, the constant narrative of "I'm unhappy with my ball and chain of a wife" is pushed from EVERYWHERE. i literally can’t quote all the things that made me cringe in that first sex scene. let's just say that if good ol' two bats travis is trying to get a job as a sports commentator, he's really gonna need to up his game, because the narration in the bedroom made me want to remove my own eardrums

the ridiculous emphasis placed on georgie’s virginity makes this feel like an early 2000s book, except it was written in 2019 lol I absolutely stopped listening to this book somewhere in the middle of chapter 13. The main character is working her party clown job at a birthday party for five year olds. She volunteers her love interest to get his face painted. While she’s painting his face, and getting all hot and horny and having inner monologue about it, there is a group of five year olds around her with lines of dialogue.This was such a cute, endearing, and sweet romance. I loved the women's friendships and Georgie's brother's kooky wife. I loved the secondary characters and the dynamic they bring to this story and I seriously can't wait for more in this series! Update 2023: all three books are available for 1 credit in a collection, so if you’re at all on the fence, look at that. The narrator worked better for me in the other two books, however book 2 was a second chance romance with a lot of marriage counseling, a caveman lead, and yes, again with the dirty deeds. I ended up only liking book 3, which balanced the dirty with funny and feisty. There have been other series by this author that I’ve enjoyed, but this trilogy was not for me. Her father is just a stereotypical as the mother, a sexist traditionalist who passed down the family business to his son. Technically he passed it down to his other daughter as well but everyone in the family knows the sons in charge. When his wife asks if she can't be apart of Georgie's and Bethany's club because she's too old (haha queue emotional manipulation here! it's so funny!) Dad says something like "You're not too old. You're just not unhappy." Implying that women can only form support groups to better themselves if they're unhappy? He also is a king manipulator himself because when Bethany says she's leaving the family company to do her own flip (something she asked to do multiple times within the family company and was shut down) he made a huge deal of it and said it was a mistake to leave the company with his children. And of course "let the adults talk, Georgie." When Georgie stands up for Bethany. Again, I know it's the plot but she's 23. It's unrealistic for people to be saying that to her. And if they did anyway, she should be cutting off her relationship with her family because no one says that to anybody over the age of twelve without it DRIPPING with condescension.

Now, what happens is, Travis treats Georgie like a kid, not only that, he never spends a single extra minute with her unless it's about something important. Finally, Georgie realizes she needs to get a life rather than dying-in-love with Travis. Which btw starts from discarding the over-sized sweaters and the rough old jeans she used to wear and start looking like a mature woman by wearing sexy dresses like a pencil skirt which shows the curves of her hips and her beautiful, freshly-waxed legs. Not to forget, her haircut. I read this because I've been seeing praise for this author everywhere. Having read it, I genuinely don't understand the hype. Really. I'm not trying to be a hater here just trying to understand. This started out with a girl with a long time crush. It turned into a friendship. Then the fake dating came to play. And then… then… the crazy hot sexy times. Then the falling in love. Travis started to see himself through Georgies eyes and develop more self worth as well. It was a beautiful thing.this all sounds very negative, which it also is. but not everything was a total disaster. the Just Us League was great. women supporting women? hell yes, that's what i want to see. especially, since their goals weren't male related. they wanted to achieve their goals and dreams, and that was really nice to see. And while there are bound to be hoards of readers who find virginal 23-year-old Georgie quirky, I’m not one of them. How was I supposed to take the girl seriously when (1) she’s a clown ( are there even any children on planet Earth that like clowns anymore?), (2) she’s never been on a date ( say what?) and (3) she just realized after a childhood of hand-me-downs that she could shop somewhere other than the thrift store ( insert eye-roll here)? In Georgie's defense, * fix her up* correlates to the growth she strives for in multiple facets of her life—career, home, and physical appearance improvements—not only the fake relationship that she lands herself in. Yawn. Tessa does it again. I laughed, swooned and had to look over my shoulder to make sure no one was reading the sexy scenes with me. Well-written, with great pacing and lovable characters, I absolutely loved everything about Fix Her Up.”— Mariana Zapata, New York Times and USA Today bestselling author Travis was..... the worst love interest. He considers Georgie his little sister for half the book but still sexualized the hell out of her in literally every single scene she’s in. He was also SO jealous and overprotective of her even when they weren’t even together, and Georgie let him get away with doing super sketchy stuff like sabotaging a date just because she thought he was ~so hot~. this book was wildly entertaining. now it’s not something out of the box and extraordinary but i thoroughly enjoyed it. it’s the vibes honestly. i loved the plot just as much as the romance. it was giving the rom and the com in rom-com.

I could not stop smiling. Romantic comedy perfection.”— Lauren Layne, New York Times bestselling author

Publication Order of Beach Kingdom Books

Georgie and Travis, oof. It's cringe. Random heartfelt, serious conversations come out of nowhere and feel extremely out of place. Their conversations consists of those weird serious ones and Travis manipulating her and constantly pointing out the age difference while Georgie tries to fix his problems. It's weird. And I didn't care about their relationship at all. The men are always complaining about their wives in the book. Especially when it's Travis' POV and no women are around. I loved both Georgie and Travis. Georgie especially was so fun and sweet. Her personality made her so darn lovable. Travis is an alpha male, but in a good way. He started out a little rough for me, but I grew to really love his character. And every time he called Georgie baby girl I melted a little. A super delightful rom com that has the heat turned up to 11...I LOVED IT! -- Lauren Morrill, author of Meant to Be the infantilization of the main character by her love interest is making me suuuuper uncomfy. i get that she’s his friend’s younger sister and they grew up together, but the age thing is *really* taking the forefront in his mind. (definitely not helped out by the “little sister tit” scene)

Georgie Castle is the youngest sibling and is never taken seriously. It doesn’t help her cause that she’s not in the family business, but instead is a professional clown (yes, you read that right). She loves kids and it’s her passion but it makes her family take her less seriously than they already do. It had the perfect amount of quirky humor with steamy romance. Bailey hits so many of my favorite romance tropes with the book and she executes them all so well... If you need a fun rom-com to take the beach this summer, then Fix Her Upis a great choice. BookishI love Tessa Bailey's contemporary romances... the books are super sexy, but also deliver on an emotional level, and provide a lot of re-read romantic moments. -- Lucy Parker, author of Act Like It and The Austen Playbook I love Tessa Bailey’s contemporary romances... the books are super sexy, but also deliver on an emotional level, and provide a lot of re-read romantic moments. Lucy Parker Travis Ford is Gerogie’s long time crush and her brother’s best friend. He is a former MBA player who is home after an injury got him out of the game. He’s a bit depressed about it and needs someone just like Georgie to get him out of the funk he’s in. Georgie does exactly that. And while doing that, she finds herself a little along the way. A super delightful rom com that has the heat turned up to 11...I LOVED IT!”— Lauren Morrill, author of Meant to Be