It Happened One Summer by Tessa Bailey

Bellinger Sisters, Book 1

Synopsis: 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.

Review: I wasn’t sure what to expect with this novel, but after seeing all the great reviews on Goodreads, I was curious to check it out and I have to say that I was not disappointed!

Piper is a rich influencer who doesn’t care about the consequences of her actions. But when she gets dumped, her stepfather and mother can’t forgive her for her umpteenth blunder. To punish her and make her think, her stepfather decides to send her to the town where her biological father lived and died when she was a child, to run the bar he left them. Hannah, her sister, decides to go with her so that she doesn’t stay alone. But this new life is completely opposite to what they know and what about Brendan, this captain who is as sexy as he is gruff ? We quickly fall for him. He was interesting and just like Piper, he will evolve a lot during the story.

I had a great time with this novel and I was impatient to see how our two heroes would evolve together, if they would manage to make compromises to accept each other’s way of life.

Yes, a very nice novel!