Tessa's books are hit or miss for me, and, unfortunately, this was a miss.

Introduced in Fan Girl Down (which I loved), Tallulah & Burgess are reintroduced here. Burgess, the aging goalie of Boston's hockey team, is having trouble keeping track of his tween daughter and needs help. He recruits Talullah, a marine biologist student, to help. At first she's very hesitant to even meet him. We find out she'd been abused in the past. Talullah's hesitance with having a relationship with big, bulking Burgess is understandable. That said, I didn't think there was enough about how she really worked through it--with or without Burgess. I love how Tessa includes real issues in her romances (diabetes in Fan GIrl Down) but here it wasn't explored beyond surface level.

The connection between T and B didn't ring true to me. Plus, we only get a few scenes of Tallulah interacting with Burgess's daughter & when there is a big issue, it's resolved off-the-page. I loved the super steam (a Tessa trademark I love), but this seemed to put the steam over emotional connection between the 2 main characters. I need to believe that my romance couples will go the distance, and these two didn't give me that vibe.

I'm still on the Bailey bus, because when she's good, she's really good. This one, unfortunately, didn't hit for me.