In June, I’m taking a break from my usual TBR schedule, instead, I’m picking books I’m in the mood to read. I will go back to my TBR format for July as I already know what books I will read next month. From my trip to Tropes and Trifles, I purchased Fangirl Down by Tessa Bailey. Fangirl Down is a golf romance and it’s the first book in Tessa Bailey’s sports romance series. This is the first Tessa Bailey book I finished because I tried to read Wreck the Halls last year and DNFed it. Fangirl Down was the smutty sports romance book I was looking for.

Josephine Doyle is Wells Whitaker’s number-one fan. After a chance encounter after a golf tournament, Wells rips Josephine’s sign in half. Feeling guilty, Wells appears at Josephine’s golf store ready to apologize. After a hurricane tore the store apart, Wells realizes how he can help. He hires Josephine as his caddy, so she can use the money to fix her pro shop. Josephine becomes the bright spot that Wells needs and he realizes there’s more to Josephine than just being a fangirl.

I loved Josephine. I’d read a whole series about her playing golf. She can dish out sassy comments back to Wells and her positivity is a perfect contrast to Wells’s grumpy attitude. She has to deal with a lot of sexism as she’s a female caddy to a male pro-golfer, but she holds her own and it’s clear that she has a lot of respect for golf as a sport (arguably more than Wells throughout this entire book). Josephine was the best.

As a golfer, I liked how golf was the backdrop to this book. The final moments were at The Masters which was the perfect way to end the book. The PGA Tour is featured several times and I like how there was some dirty talk that focused specifically on golf. I enjoyed reading about Josephine and Wells jetting off to the next tournament throughout the US.

While I loved this book, I felt there were moments where the writing was cringe. If I were to read the dialogue out loud, there’s no way that anyone talks that way in a normal conversation. While this book was smutty, some of the scenes were hot and others gave me the ick. There’s also a particular scene in this book that wasn’t for me, but I have to admire Josephine for taking what she wants.

The last thing I wanted to add, while Wells does grow up a lot, I think he’s a walking red flag. The way he treats Josephine at times is not the best. To be fair, he does apologize, although it feels like common sense not to treat someone that way. I think Tessa Bailey wrote Wells to be this over-the-top aggressive person which I didn’t think was needed. The epilogue in Fangirl Down helps because it shows how Wells has matured. While Josephine and Wells are cute together, Wells needs therapy.

Fangirl Down was a hole-in-one. I didn’t think I would enjoy this book as much as I did and now I’m invested in Tessa Bailey’s series. The second book, The Au Pair Affair will be published sometime this Summer.