Tessa Bailey follows up her golf romance Fangirl Down by matching the best friends from that story in the second book in the Big Shots series, THE AU PAIR AFFAIR.
Burgess Abraham earned his nickname Sir Savage as a veteran defensive player and team captain for the Boston Bearcats hockey team. When his tween daughter clicks with Tallulah, recently divorced dad Burgess immediately offers her a live-in nanny position. She fled from a traumatic experience in college that left her fearful and unable to trust men to work in remote research positions in places like Antarctica. Tallulah decides to face her demons by returning to grad school in Boston. A free apartment in a great neighborhood while earning money seems like a winning combination until she realizes it means living with a burly, grumpy behemoth with a violent reputation on the ice. Burgess has his own emotional scars following his divorce and struggles to communicate with his daughter. I loved how the big tough hockey brute is a cinnamon roll off the ice with a protective streak a mile wide. It is a fast-paced read that can be read as a stand-alone but even better as a series where the couple from the first book is featured prominently as they plan and host their destination wedding with Burgess and Tallulah as attendants. Although I love spice, there is one thing that didn’t work for me in THE AU PAIR AFFAIR. I felt the dirty talk and related activity to be inconsistent with the way the characters were otherwise written. Still, it is a solid second book in this sports-themed series and looking forward to the third book, Dream Girl Drama in early 2025.
#1 New York Times bestselling author Tessa Bailey returns with an all-new sports rom-com about a burly, surly, single dad who falls head-over-hockey-stick for his quirky live-in nanny...
Tallulah is smart, vivacious, and studying to be a marine biologist. She’s also twenty-six and broke. So when Burgess, a battle-scarred hockey veteran and newly single dad, offers her a job as his live-in nanny, she jumps at the opportunity to get paid while living in a super fancy neighborhood and being around Lissa, his cool but introverted tween.
Her tween charge isn’t the only one who could use some help fitting in, though. According to…well, everyone except Burgess, he needs to get back on the dating scene, and adventurous Tallulah is just the girl to show him how. But as boundaries are slowly crossed and Burgess finds himself pulled between his daughter, who wants her parents back together, and his insane chemistry with Tallulah, a huge rift is formed, and Tallulah does the “right” thing—breaks her own heart and walks away.
Though Burgess knows it’s for the best—he’s too jaded, with too much baggage—a chance meeting, and a new push from his daughter, forces him to put everything on the line and fight to prove he learned his lessons well and is worthy of a happily ever after with Tallulah.
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