FIX HER UP (Hot and Hammered #1) by Tessa Bailey-a review

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About the book: Release Date June 11, 2019

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

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REVIEW: FIX HER UP is the first instalment in Tessa Bailey’s contemporary, adult HOT AND HAMMERED erotic, romance series. This is twenty-eight year old, former professional baseball player Travis Ford, and twenty-three year old, birthday clown Georgette ‘Georgie’ Castle’s story line.

Told from dual third person perspectives (Georgie and Travis) FIX HER UP follows the fake relationship trope between twenty-eight year old, former professional baseball player Travis Ford, and twenty-three year old, birthday clown Georgette ‘Georgie’ Castle. Travis Ford’s life has spiralled out of controlled since the career ending injury left him without a direction in life. Heading home with his tail between his legs Travis will come face to face with his best friend’s younger sister, a little girl who is now all grown up. When the second opportunity of a life-time is offered to our story line hero, Travis knows he has to clean up his act including his reputation as a man-wh*re, and a hit it and quit it serial dater. Enter Georgette ‘Georgie’ Castle, the woman who has offered to go along with a ‘fake relationship’ deal, in an effort to help Travis become the next big thing in baseball commentating. What ensues is the fake but building relationship between Georgia and Travis, and the potential fall-out as sins of the past destroy the fragile truce between Travis and the people back home.

Travis Ford’s reputation as a womanizer precedes his return to his hometown of Fort Jefferson but the one-time baseball phenom is no longer riding the glory train but the train to embarrassment festered by his previous reputation. In an effort to clean up his image Travis agrees to a ‘fake relationship’ with his best friend’s sister, a relationship that is about to turn into something more. Georgie Castle has never been taken seriously by anyone in her family and her career choice as a birthday clown seems to solidify her family’s observations of their youngest child. Never taken seriously Georgie ventures off on her own only to realize that her relationship with Travis may have been a bigger ruse than she could have ever imagined.

The relationship between Travis and Georgie is a best friend’s little sister / fake relationship that finds our couple considering that what ifs and whys of something more but Travis’ past refuses to die including the reputation that is constantly dragging him down. The $ex scenes are erotic, passionate and intense. Travis likes to talk dirty to the woman with whom he will fall in love.

We are introduced to Georgie’s family: brother Stephen and his wife Kristin; their sister Bethany, and their parents Morty and Vivian Castle; friends Rosie and her husband Dominic; and several small minded townies with long memories.

FIX HER UP is a story of family, friendship, reputation and love. The premise is wondrous and spicy; the characters are sassy, eclectic and energetic; the romance is steamy and hot. FIX HER UP is a flirty, fun and playful story you will not soon forget.

Copy supplied by Edelweiss

Reviewed by Sandy