Chase Me (Broke and Beautiful #1)by Tessa Bailey (Goodreads, Twitter, Website)
Published by Avon Impulse on March 17th, 2015
Genres: New Adult, Contemporary, Romance, Humor
Format: eBook (272 pages)
Source: Purchased
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College drop-out, Roxy Cumberland, moved to New York with dreams of becoming an actress, but her dwindling bank account is quickly putting the kibosh on that fantasy. To make some quick cash, she signs up to perform singing telegrams. Her first customer is a gorgeous, cocky Manhattan trust-funder if she ever laid eyes on one. And what could be more humiliating than singing an ode to his junk, courtesy of his last one night stand? Maybe the fact that she’s dressed in a giant, pink bunny costume...
After a night out to celebrate winning his last case, lawyer Louis McNally II isn’t prepared for the pounding in his head or the rabbit serenading him from the front door. But the sassy wit and sexy voice of the girl behind the mask intrigues him, and one look at her stunning face—followed by a mind-blowing kiss against his doorjamb—leaves Louis wanting more.
Roxy doesn’t need a spoiled rich boy who’s had everything in life handed to him on a Tiffany platter. But there’s more to Louis than his sexy surface and he’s determined to make Roxy see it...even if it means chasing her all over NYC.
Tessa Bailey is part of my auto-buy authors list, and I loved her romance novels. She's fantastic in writing sexy and steamy novels, and Line of Duty series is one of the sexiest Men-in-Uniform books I've ever read, and not only am I praising her for her skills in writing sex scenes, but also her style in writing explosive characters that are just oozing with chemistry... which makes my disappointment for this book kind of appalling.
Although the beginning had me cracking up and giggle-snorting—because the humor and the flirtatious banter between Roxy and Louis at the beginning was hilarious, with the right amount of tension unfurling between them—here are just so many unsatisfactory aspects of this book, particularly the characters.
Louis was an alright character, and he didn't wow me unlike Bailey's usual sexy, dominant heroes, which was disappointing. On the other hand, Roxy was another issue. I'm all for a strong female character; feisty, independent and perhaps a little bit of snark here and there, I love them. Who doesn't? A strong female, no matter how she's an "independent woman who needs no man" should know her limits and that is not how Roxy is. Sure she's snarky, feisty and has got a lot of backbone... but she's overly prideful, which had me shaking my head as I got further into the story. If worse comes to worst, and I still have a family to run to, despite not being close to them, I would ask for their help. But what does Roxy do? She'd rather go through drastic measures than ask her parents for a little bit of help. Basically, the word "help" is not to be found in her vocabulary.
The romance also bored me as the story progressed, as it was filled with push and pull scenarios. The number of times Roxy pushed Louis away due to her reasons that I absolutely consider too shallow, I couldn't help but just roll my eyes at everything. Their chemistry that unfurled at their first meeting went down the drain. I do understand Bailey wanted to go for the angsty kind of tension between the couple, but it just didn't work at all. Roxy and Louis' romance was literally a sped up ping pong game that went on for hours and hours. But I still stand by the fact that Tessa Bailey still writes extremely hot sex scenes, which I very much approve of. The ending, however, was too abrupt for my taste, which I obviously didn't fancy.
I didn't hate this book, but I didn't like it or enjoy reading it either (and I'm also not a fan of the cover). Although the main characters didn't appeal to me, the secondary characters (Roxy's roommates and Louis' friends) did pique my interest, thus, I will be continuing this series. Hopefully, it does better than this first novel.
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