Book Review: The Au Pair Affair (Big Shots #2) by Tessa Bailey

As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases made through links on this site. Your purchases help fund my content and come at no extra cost to you. Thank you for your support!

I read It Happened One Summer last year, and it is still my favorite book of all time. I love a good small-town romance, and that book more than delivered. 

At this point, I think I’ve read more than 10 books by Tessa Bailey, so when I saw this one, I knew I had to pick it up. 

Because of school and other stuff, I hadn’t been able to get to it earlier, but this past weekend I decided not to open anything related to school. I finally read it and I am so in love.

So, here’s what happens in this book: our male lead, Burgess, is a hockey player who is at the tail end of his career. He’s also struggling with being a single father to his daughter. 

When he meets our female lead, Tallulah, at a wedding, he is immediately smitten and offers her employment as his au pair. 

She agrees at first, but then backs out because she has been through a lot, and something about him triggers some of her past trauma. 

Eventually, though, she agrees again, and they end up living together while she takes care of his daughter.

I’ve read a good number of single-parent romance books, and my absolute highlight is always when the love interest starts falling for the child. That’s exactly what we get here. 

Unlike some books I’ve read in the past few weeks, where the child is more of a placeholder, this one gives us a young girl with a real personality, dreams, and even hopes about her parents getting back together. She adds so much to the story. 

There’s a little push and pull and plenty of conflict simmering beneath the surface, which I absolutely loved.

The relationship between our male and female leads is magnetic. They’re intensely attracted to each other, and just like in every Tessa Bailey book, you know it’s going to get spicy and I loved every bit of it. 

I absolutely adore it when the male lead is a total goner for his girl, and, here, he literally alls in love with her at first sight, though he spends a good portion of the book trying to suppress it because he feels he’s too old for her. 

She, on the other hand, doesn’t even think it’s possible that he might be remotely interested in her. But somehow, they end up together.

Once they are together, they begin working through their fears—him with the uncertainty of his career and her with the trauma she has carried for so long. 

The third-act breakup is very interesting here because, unlike in other books where the conflict resolves quickly, this one lingers. 

We see both of them working through their deepest fears on their own, which I think was so important. 

Everything before the breakup mattered, because it set the stage for them to confront what truly scared them. 

But it was only after the breakup that they really had to reconcile with the ugliest parts of themselves and that made them feel very human to me.

I will say, though—and it actually pains me to say this—in this book, the male lead goes through the most character development. 

For some reason, I just couldn’t connect as deeply with the female lead’s struggles. 

Not because she was unlikeable or off-putting, but it was just harder for me to relate to her pain compared to his. 

That’s very odd, because it has never happened to me before, but I guess there’s a first time for everything. 

The male lead, on the other hand, is put through the wringer, both physically and emotionally, for a big part of the story.

Still, this book is ultimately about the female lead learning to confront the parts of herself that have been shaped by trauma. 

She essentially becomes reacquainted with her childhood self, which was so important for her character development. 

I loved this book, and I’m going to recommend it to everyone. I adore it when a romance novel has real substance, and that’s exactly what we get here.

I honestly cannot wait for the next book in the series. 

The couple was hinted at several times in this one, and their love story sounds so interesting to me. 

I’ll definitely be checking it out, and I’ll make sure to write a review when I do.

If you’ve read this book and enjoyed it, let me know your thoughts. 

And if you have a favorite Tessa Bailey book you love, I’d absolutely appreciate your recommendation.