Too Hot to Handle

Hey Siri, play Arsonists Lullaby by Hozier.

I'm giving this 2.5 stars. This was my first Tessa Bailey read, and I'm a little disappointed. This book is written well, and I can definitely see why Tessa Bailey is the queen of dirty talk. I like the idea of the premise and the characters have some real struggles. Despite all that, I wasn't invested in Jasper, Rita, or the siblings, and I didn't buy the chemistry between Jasper and Rita. There were a lot of complicated backstories in the relationships between the siblings, and there were too many mysteries that weren't addressed at all throughout. The characters and the story, for me, lacked a sweetness or a charm that felt really necessary in a book that centers on the journey of two people who grow to be each other's saving graces. Jasper felt a little overbearing, overprotective (especially when he barged into the family's trust building campfire exercise), and pretty over-reactive (like when he angrily threw his coffee cup after he thought Rita had left town for good after they'd only known each other maybe a day). The story went on about 50 pages too long, far past the happily-ever-after moment, which I think could have been fixed with moving some of the events around. All in all, this one was a ‘meh' for me.