Source: Goodreads
Georgie Castle has always been invisible. As the pesky little sister left out of the family business, she’s found her own way in life, using her business degree to launch a small company doing children’s birthday parties. Only, the business is so small that it’s just her. Dressed up as a clown. But no matter how good she is at her job, it definitely doesn’t make her family take her anymore seriously than they ever have.
Travis Ford is back in town after a shoulder injury ended his shining baseball career prematurely. He’s drowning his sorrows in beer and take out until someone breaks into his apartment and starts throwing food at him. Literally. But is he really going to let his best friend’s kid sister tell him how to live his life? Heck no. What could Georgie know about life? She’s just a kid. The pesky little sister of his best friend, who came to all his games growing up and spied on him from a tree in her back yard.
As Travis begins to build a new life, he becomes increasingly aware of a few things. 1) Someone started a betting pool to see who the baseball playboy will date first. 2) His washed up fame has left him high and dry… and lonely. And 3) Georgie is so not the kid he remembers from his school days. Too bad she’s busy building her own life, determined to make her family take her seriously, and is treating him like the big brother he’s always been to her.
This book was exactly the distraction I needed, though had I known the title of the series I probably would have been better prepared. It started off super cute and then became quite, quite steamy, actually. I’ve since shoved it at multiple friends who are also enjoying themselves. We’ve been texting about it and it mainly ends up being heart emojis because we all love Georgie and Travis just so much. Not safe to read aloud at work, and also probably inappropriate for anyone under 18.
I will say that the whole ‘little sister’ trope is a bit overused, and Travis calling her “baby girl” and referring to her as his little sister all the time does make everything a little, well, awkward. Add in that Georgie is a literal birthday clown and Travis is obsessed with her being a virgin, and you have the ultimate awkward scene. But it still managed to somehow be cute. When it comes to contemporary romance, there’s always a lot of objectification, and Georgie and Travis both participate in this quite a lot, but it doesn’t overwhelm the story. This was a light, quick read, with some very steamy (and somewhat awkward, I’ll be honest. It’s very step-by-step rather than overall-emotion) scenes. I’ve never read any of Bailey’s books before, so I’ll have to check out a few more before I can say for sure that this is her normal style, but it was a fun summer beach read!
HHC Rating: 3.5 Stars.
Other books in this series: Book 2 – Love Her or Lose Her (Expected Publication 2020)