Wie bereits Band 1 auch eine süße Liebesgeschichte, die im Wein-Mekka der USA spielt und uns dieses Mal sogar ein kleines bisschen mehr hinter die Kulissen der Weinherstellung mitnimmt 🍷🍇 Dank des männlichen Protagonisten August gefiel es mir sogar minimal besser als Band 1, ist aber trotzdem kein Liebling der Autorin.

》"Like I said, I don't like her being sad. I'd rather have her angry and I'm pretty good at making that happen. I'd also really like her to be ℎ𝑎𝑝𝑝𝑦 with me more often than she's annoyed. I'd... love it, actually. Happy Natalie is a mission I want to go on and never come back. Have I gotten off track here?"《 - he's sooo falling for her. Love it how he reveals a lot of his inner thought after being asked by her mother: "Do you have genuine feelings for my daughter?" __________________________ 》The increasing protectiveness he felt for his fiancé told August... This wasn't temporary. 𝑇ℎ𝑒𝑦 weren't. 𝑆𝑜𝑟𝑟𝑦, 𝑝𝑟𝑖𝑛𝑐𝑒𝑠𝑠. 𝑆𝑢𝑐𝑘𝑠 𝑡𝑜 𝑏𝑒 𝑦𝑜𝑢. This woman standing in front of him was his destiny. Part of him had known it the night they met, when she'd made him laugh and made him horny in the same breath. Jesus, she looked beautiful tonight [...]《 __________________________ 》"August." She waved her hand in front of his face. "Battle of the sexes. The wager." "Wager. Right." 𝐼𝑓 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑚𝑒𝑛 𝑤𝑖𝑛, 𝑦𝑜𝑢 𝑎𝑔𝑟𝑒𝑒 𝑡𝑜 𝑔𝑟𝑜𝑤 𝑜𝑙𝑑 𝑤𝑖𝑡ℎ 𝑚𝑒. - omg, I love him so much now The whole part before this! __________________________ 》"Natalie? Yeah, she's..." He let go of a breath. "Way out of my league. Remember how I used to tell you no woman would ever get me under her spell? Well, this one could. She could have me whipped in the time it takes to crack an egg."《 __________________________ 》𝑌𝑜𝑢'𝑟𝑒 𝑎𝑙𝑟𝑒𝑎𝑑𝑦 𝑙𝑖𝑣𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑓𝑜𝑟 ℎ𝑒𝑟 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑦𝑜𝑢 𝑘𝑛𝑜𝑤 𝑖𝑡.《 __________________________ 》𝐼'𝑚 𝑓𝑎𝑙𝑙𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑓𝑜𝑟 𝑚𝑦 ℎ𝑢𝑠𝑏𝑎𝑛𝑑. 𝐻𝑎𝑟𝑑 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑓𝑎𝑠𝑡. Might even be well past...𝑓𝑎𝑙𝑙𝑒𝑛 for him territory. 《 __________________________ - have to admit, at first, I thought i would like the couple from the first book more, but in the end, I'm going with these two ♡♡♡

This book is not a literary masterpiece. Don't expect that. However, this book is funny, spicy, it made me laugh, I made me cry. Such a good marriage of convenience trope. He falls for her first and becomes utterly obsessed with Natalie. He's completely infatuated with her. He strives to improve himself for her and to communicate better

Here we are again. I didn't enjoy Secretly Yours but I decided to read the sequel anyway. Don't ask me why, I honestly don't know. Anyhow, I'm detecting a trend with the men in this series becoming obsessed with boobs. This book is less bad than the previous, August obviously has it bad for Natalie from the moment he met her, and unlike Julian who only seemed to care about her boobs, August actually genuinely seems to like Natalie. Their banter was cute. However, the book is repetitive as fuck. Every time they have an intimate scene, there's this internal monologue about how it means nothing. Again and again. Plus they keep secrets from each other, which is just another excuse to drag out the miscommunication trope. We already went down that route in book one, do we really need to have a repeat? No one enjoys the miscommunication trope. It's just an excuse for bad writing. There are so many less lazy ways to create a conflict. Also, the author apparently decided that oral sex doesn't count as having sex, I'm sorry to break it to ya hon, but you're wrong, anyhow putting that point aside, they finally fuck and then August literally has his life flash before his eyes.. What? I'm sorry, what? It's life-altering now? Really? I rolled my eyes so hard it hurt. It ruined the entire scene for me, which is saying something considering they've been building up to it for the past 75% of the book. Next you're gonna tell me it was so life altering he found religion. On average I've found that Tessa Bailey writes some decent smut, but that scene was... something else. And not in a good way. And apparently August doesn't just get life-altering sex, it also gives him superpowers because he can "sense Natalie's presence" now. After that they can sense each others thoughts down to every detail, without speaking? Great to know we've developed telepathy now. What's next, curing cancer? Tessa, whatever drugs you were on while writing this, I want them. And then at the end they realize it was insta-love from the start. If I roll my eyes any harder they'll pop out of my head. And they live happily ever after. I probably would've given it 3 stars but the last 25% was just.. outright ridiculous. Down to 2 stars we go.

First of, the narration made me want to ditch this several times! Urgh! August made up for it and kept me going, although at no moment in time did I find his reasoning for his lie of omission reasonable and it annoyed me to no end. Who out of their right mind does this thinking the outcome will improve with time??? And don’t even get me started on the fact the FMM seemed to just have forgotten she even had a secret to come clean about, until the MMC’s was revealed. Duh! Aside from that, the timeline was absolutely ridiculous! Who expects someone to trust them and open up completely within a week? A WEEK?? These two characters expected way too much of each other as well as themselves for this to have felt realistic. It had me rolling my eyes. Still… a few scenes had me swooning… so, cute overall.

3,5⭐ Die Geschichte rund um Natalie und August hat mir definitiv besser gefallen als der erste Teil der unabhängigen Dilogie! Natalie war mir von Anfang an sympathisch und ich mochte ihre Charakter Entwicklung sehr. Sie musste nach ihrem Karriere Tiefpunkt alles wieder von neu versuchen, sich immer wieder beweisen, ohne Anmerkungen zu bekommen und trotzdem hat sie nie aufgeben, an sich und ihr Talent zu glauben. August habe ich auch beide er ersten Begegnung in mein Herz geschlossen. Er ist genau das, was Natalie brauchte, obwohl sie es selbst noch nicht wusste. August ist der einzige, der an sie glaubt, ihre Stärke und ihren Mut sieht und ihr einfach jegliche Unterstützung gibt. Dadurch kam natürlich die Fake-Hochzeit gelegen, damit Natalie an ihr zustehendes Familiengeld kommt. Und irgendwie handeln sie schon sofort wie ein richtiges Ehepaar: Sie streiten, sie reden darüber, es kommt zu Missverständnissen, aber sie geben sich nicht auf! Das einzige, was mir nicht gefallen hat, ist die kurze Handlungszeit im Buch. Es passiert so viel in wenigen Tagen, sodass man denkt, sie sind seit mehreren Monaten schon Fake-verheiratet, obwohl es erst die ersten paar Tage nach der Hochzeit sind...und wenn man das mit betrachtet, geht mir die Entwicklung von der Zeit her zu schnell. Theoretisch geschieht alles innerhalb einer Woche.

3,5⭐ Die Geschichte rund um Natalie und August hat mir definitiv besser gefallen als der erste Teil der unabhängigen Dilogie! Natalie war mir von Anfang an sympathisch und ich mochte ihre Charakter Entwicklung sehr. Sie musste nach ihrem Karriere Tiefpunkt alles wieder von neu versuchen, sich immer wieder beweisen, ohne Anmerkungen zu bekommen und trotzdem hat sie nie aufgeben, an sich und ihr Talent zu glauben. August habe ich auch beide er ersten Begegnung in mein Herz geschlossen. Er ist genau das, was Natalie brauchte, obwohl sie es selbst noch nicht wusste. August ist der einzige, der an sie glaubt, ihre Stärke und ihren Mut sieht und ihr einfach jegliche Unterstützung gibt. Dadurch kam natürlich die Fake-Hochzeit gelegen, damit Natalie an ihr zustehendes Familiengeld kommt. Und irgendwie handeln sie schon sofort wie ein richtiges Ehepaar: Sie streiten, sie reden darüber, es kommt zu Missverständnissen, aber sie geben sich nicht auf! Das einzige, was mir nicht gefallen hat, ist die kurze Handlungszeit im Buch. Es passiert so viel in wenigen Tagen, sodass man denkt, sie sind seit mehreren Monaten schon Fake-verheiratet, obwohl es erst die ersten paar Tage nach der Hochzeit sind...und wenn man das mit betrachtet, geht mir die Entwicklung von der Zeit her zu schnell. Theoretisch geschieht alles innerhalb einer Woche.