When it comes to Tessa Bailey books, I’ve come to expect a couple things every time: a quick read and all the pulsating and heaving you can imagine. This one fell just short of the mark on both counts for me.
The Au Pair Affair tells the story of live-in nanny Tallulah and her burly, tortured, single-dad boss, Burgess, who is a professional hockey player and a professional tease. While Tallulah tries her hardest to keep her walls up, she quickly grows attached to Burgess and his angsty teen daughter, falling head-over-heels for him and hockey in the process.
The Au Pair Affair is technically the second book in the three-part Big Shots Series, but it reads easily as a standalone as well. I read this one with my ladies’ book club, and we all agreed that it had all of the standard Tessa-Bailey-features but lacked in the departments of real character development and depth, leaving us wondering whether Burgess and Tallulah had really learned anything at all or if this was simply a tale of how to draw out foreplay for months.
The pros: As always, Tessa Bailey proves herself to be the queen of smut. We see Tallulah and Burgess experience all the pains of wanting something you can’t have, both physically and emotionally, which gives way to some really satisfying bedroom scenes. This, coupled with the great character attributes they hold separately, makes for an easy read. I finished this one in a weekend, and I wasn’t necessarily disappointed by the ending. It makes a good read in-between heavier books, and as a rom-com, it has the smut; the protective, hot boss trope; and the mentally anguished, female main character that you’d expect to see.
The cons: There just wasn’t much to be said for the actual plot and character development. Burgess insists he can’t cross physical boundaries with Tallulah, his employee, but does on multiple occasions, beginning as early as in the first chapter. His come-to-Jesus, career-dampening injury teaches him next to nothing, and the personality of his teenage daughter is the most realistic thing about the entire book. There is an underlying storyline involving another set of soon-to-be lovers who are also step-siblings (?), which felt a little strange and unrelated to the plot and is likely a setup for the third book in the series.
Overall, I felt that the smut had good build-up, and I enjoyed watching Tallulah become more of a mother figure to Burgess’s daughter, but I wish there had been a little more development and resolution regarding Tallulah’s personal trauma. I would have liked to see some of the cheesier details (massage agreements?) exchanged for some deeper scenes with the ex-wife or some further exploration into Tallulah’s personal interests.
My rating: 3 out of 5 stars
Book Club rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars
Click the link below to purchase The Au Pair Affair by Tessa Bailey, using my amazon affiliate link.
Danielle Says... 