Hi Foreverbookers,
How are you all. I hope you’re well!
I’ve just finished “It Happened One Summer” by Tessa Bailey and I LOVED it!
5 Stars!
“It Happened One Summer” is about sisters, Piper and Hannah who need to move to a seaside town after living in LA for their whole lives. This first book, in what I assume is just a duet is primarily about Piper, the elder sibling and seeing her learn to accept herself and become someone new and improved. “It Happened One Summer” read like a literary fiction novel. It was very dense in terms of words and word count more specifically, I thought. What could have been said in one or two sentences was made into long drawn out paragraphs, which in some instances was fine but the novel could have been at least 100 pages less, I think. I still really enjoyed it, though!
The novel is told in 3rd person. I generally don’t like third person stories because I feel disconnected from the characters. However in “It Happened One Summer,” I felt all of Piper’s struggles and worries as well as the joy and rapture she felt too.
I read “It Happened One Summer” at the end of summer 2023!
There is, of course, dirty language in “It Happened One Summer” as it’s an adult romance with various sex scenes.
Spoilers Below
“The unthinkable was happening.
Her longest relationship on record . . . over in the blink of an eye.
Three weeks of her life wasted.
Piper Bellinger looked down at her lipstick-red, one shoulder Valentino cocktail dress and tried to find the flaw but came up with nothing. Her tastefully tanned legs were polished to such a shine, she’d checked her teeth in them earlier. Nothing appeared amiss up top, either. She’d swiped the tape holding up her boobs while backstage at a runway show in Milan during fashion week—we’re talking the holy grail of tit tape—and those puppies were on point. Big enough to draw a man’s eye, small enough to achieve an athletic vibe in every fourth Instagram post. Versatility kept people interested.
Satisfied that nothing concerning her appearance was glaringly out of place, Piper trailed her gaze up the pleated leg of Adrian’s classic Tom Ford suit made of the finest sharkskin wool, unable to quell a sigh over the luxurious peak lapels and monogrammed buttons. The way her boyfriend impatiently checked his Chopard watch and scanned the crowd over his shoulder only added to the bored-playboy effect.
Hadn’t his cold unattainability attracted her to him in the first place?”
This is how we’re introduced to Piper, our main female character. She’s very much the IT girl here, at the beginning of the novel. Adrian is her boyfriend but about to become her EX boyfriend. He’s not present in much of the book. He would have annoyed me, I feel if he had been in the whole story. She forgets about him after this point. Piper likes how Adrian is cold at the start. Does her attitude towards men change by the end of the story?
Piper gets put in jail, because she breaks into an LA pool to make a statement, as an IT girl would do. Her stepfather doesn’t like this so he and her mother send her off to Westport, a small seaside/fishing town where the her and her sister, Hannah’s father lived before he died. Henry Cross, their dad, died from an accident while out crabbing. In Westport, she meets Brendan, our other main character. “It was the one in the floppy hat who caught his eye right away, purely because she looked the most ridiculous, a lipstick shaped purse digging into her forearm, wrists limp and drawn up to her shoulders, as if she was afraid to touch something. She tilted her head back and gazed up at the building and laughed. And that laugh turned into what looked like a sob, though he couldn’t hear it through the music and pane of glass.” This is Brendan’s first reaction to Piper. He thinks she looks peculiar but is attracted to her nonetheless. He wants to comfort her when he sees her sob, although he doesn’t know why.
Brendan is a fisherman through and through. He owns the “Della Ray” ship and goes crab hunting with his crew every few weeks. Does this annoy and scare Piper because of how her father died or can she accept it? You’ll need to read to find out! Brendan was once married but his wife died. It’s revealed in the novel that he didn’t really love his wife, Desiree. They were childhood sweethearts but nothing more. He married her more out of duty. Desiree’s father is called Mick, whom Piper meets and forms a friendship with at first. Does this continue? You’ll need to read to find out! It’s Piper that Brendan loves and wants, he tells Mick, after Piper crashes Desiree’s memorial party unknowingly.
“Oh no. No, no, no.” She reached the opposite sidewalk and turned, waving her hands at him, palms out. “Please, you have to go back. You cannot leave your wife’s memorial to come after the idiot who ruined it.”
Even if he wanted to, he couldn’t go back. His body wouldn’t physically allow it. Because as much as he hated her obvious embarrassment, he would rather be out there chasing her in the street than in that basement. It was no contest. And yeah, he couldn’t deny anymore that his priorities were shifting. As a creature of habit, that scared him, but he refused to simply let her walk away. “You didn’t ruin anything.”
Brendan doesn’t blame Piper for offering to buy drinks at the bar when she didn’t know about the memorial. He didn’t love Desiree as a husband should love a wife, anyway. This is revealed in,
“I never felt . . .” He lowered his voice. “There wasn’t an attraction like I have for you. I’m not just talking about sex. We were friends, in a way. She was always trying to meet her father’s expectations, and so was I, after he gave me the Della Ray. He obviously thought we’d make a good match, so I asked her out, and I think . . . both of us just wanted to make Mick happy. That’s what we had in common. So we just went through the motions, even when it didn’t feel right. When she died, I kept the ring on, kept my vows, to keep him healed as much as possible. Then you showed up, Piper. Then you. And it felt wrong having ever given those vows to anyone else.”
Here, Brendan lets Piper know that he never truly loved Desiree, nor she him. They just went through the motions for Mick’s sake, to keep him happy and not depressed. Also here, Brendan tells Piper that he only wants to give vows to her! This shows how serious Brendan is about making Piper happy. I loved this part, and I hope they get married in Hook, Line and Sinker, book 2.
After that the novel is basically a lot of meet ups between Piper and Brendan. I loved seeing the relationship develop between them. Their relationship really ramps up, I’d say at three quarters of the way through the story. Here, Piper, Brendan, Hannah and Fox, one of Brendan’s crewmen on the Della Ray, go to Boston. Piper and Brendan have some sexy fun in a changing room while Piper tries on and buys LOTS of pairs of jeans. I was laughing at this.
The novel isn’t overtly erotic, however the author does mention sexual parts within her writing. “Right on the verge of his well-deserved orgasm, Brendan surged forward, wrapping his hands around her waist and lifting her up onto the dining room table. She teetered, dizzy from the rapid ascent, but she snapped back to reality when Brendan dropped to his own knees and stripped off his shirt. “Ohhh,” she said in slow motion. “Heyyy, looook aaat thaaaat.”
He was yoked.
She’d known on some level that Brendan was built like a motherfucker. His arms always tested the seams of his sweatshirts, his chest ridged with muscle, but she’d been unaware of the definition. The chiseled planes of his pecs ended in a tight drop-off; then it was a mountain range of abs.” This is one such section of the text that focuses on their sexual desires. This is at about the half way point of the book. Piper appreciates how Brendan looks. Brendan is well-built but then you’d expect that from a sailor, or at least I would. I enjoyed the sex scenes. They were well written and were interspersed throughout the second half of the story quite frequently. Piper is shocked at how good looking Brendan is. We can tell this in how she uses extended words when Brendan takes off his shirt. This isn’t the changing room scene but that’s a little too sexual to review, I feel, as is a scene at the hospital when Piper goes to check if Brendan is hurt after being out at sea. I really wanted Brendan to propose to Piper, but that didn’t happen in “It Happened One Summer.” Maybe it’ll happen in book 2?!!!
Kirby, Piper’s ‘best friend’ in LA treats her really badly. It’s all about her wants/desires. She doesn’t give a flip about poor Piper’s feelings on anything. She just goes ahead and does what she wants. This is shown most when she DEMANDS Piper to come back to LA. Piper, by this point knows she doesn’t want that. She wants to stay in Westport with Brendan who is by this point her boyfriend. Does Kirby get her way or does Piper stand up for what she wants?
“Let me throw you a welcome back party. I’ve already got the venue lined up, Exclusive invites only. The Party Princess Returns. I might have leaked the idea to a few designers, some beverage companies, and they’re offering to pay you, Piper. A whole lot of money to walk out in their dress, drink their shit on camera. I’m talking about six figures. Let’s do this. Let’s make you a fucking legend.” Kirby clearly wants Piper back in LA, where she thinks she belongs. I hated Kirby. She was only interested in Piper’s status as an IT girl, not about her feelings or her wants/desires. How can Piper say no, especially when she doesn’t feel valued in Westport?
There are other characters as well, of course. For example, Mick, Desiree’s dad, Desiree, although she’s not actually present as she died, just mentioned, Abe, an old man that Piper helps get to the museum each morning and Opal, Piper’s and Hannah’s grandmother, their father, Henry’s mother. All of these characters play a role in the book. I don’t want to spoil what happens with some of them, though. It’s always good to have some surprises, after all.
Overall then, I loved this novel because it mainly focused on Piper and Brendan and their relationship. They even have a discussion about whether they want children together. Piper isn’t sure if she does, will she know by the end of the novel? You’ll need to read to find out! There are a lot of other elements to the plot of “It Happened One Summer,” but the main ones are the ones I’ve highlighted above, I feel. The main point of “It Happened One Summer” is to not give up on what you want. If what you want is truly important to you stick with it! When Piper gives up, she instantly regrets it and attempts to make things better. I can’t wait to read “Hook, Line and Sinker,” book 2 to this duet, and Hannah’s story next summer!
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