LOVE HER OR LOSE HER
Series: Hot and Hammered #2
Author: Tessa Bailey
Genre: Contemporary Romance
Release Date: January 14th, 2020
Rosie and Dominic Vega are the perfect couple: high school sweethearts, best friends, madly in love. Well, they used to be anyway. Now Rosie’s lucky to get a caveman grunt from the ex-soldier every time she walks in the door. Dom is faithful and a great provider, but the man she fell in love with ten years ago is nowhere to be found. When her girlfriends encourage Rosie to demand more out of life and pursue her dream of opening a restaurant, she decides to demand more out of love, too. Three words: marriage boot camp.
Never in a million years did Rosie believe her stoic, too-manly-to-emote husband would actually agree to relationship rehab with a weed-smoking hippy. Dom talking about feelings? Sitting on pillows? Communing with nature? Learning love languages? Nope. But to her surprise, he’s all in, and it forces her to admit her own role in their cracked foundation. As they complete one ridiculous—yet surprisingly helpful—assignment after another, their remodeled relationship gets stronger than ever. Except just as they’re getting back on track, Rosie discovers Dom has a secret… and it could demolish everything.
5 ‘Love Language’ Stars
MIND BLOWN… Ok, not just simply blown, OBLITERATED is more like it! My heart, BODY and soul are in awe with Love Her or Lose Her. Tessa Bailey not only created an EPIC second chance romance, she set the bar to impossible heights when it comes to married couples’ Romance. It was from opening word to the very end of the Epilogue, PERFECTION! And who knew a marriage crisis’ book could have the most LEGENDARY of sexual chemistries?! Hot damnnnnnn… 😉
Sure, I knew – or at least expected, lol – that Dom and Rosie’s story was going to be monumental, but what Ms. Bailey gave us in this story is far beyond anything I could have anticipated!
Dominic and Rosie have been each other worlds from the moment the met, and got together in high school, the true epitome of ‘high school sweethearts’, all sticking together through tick and thin, even while Dom was in deployed their relationship was never in question. But after his return something changed and they have now for five years basically living in silence, while sharing a home and a weekly non verbally scheduled sexathon, because one thing is certain, raw sexual chemistry is INSANE, that that was never the issue. The problem was that everything else was, until Rosie had enough and left home, and now Dom need to prove to his wife their love and marriage deserves a second chance…
Understand how serious I am about bringing you back to me. Don’t doubt me when I say I’ll fight dirty to get you back through this door.”
“I’ll do anything you ask me to do,” he said in a gravelly voice. “Except walk away.”
What a journey!!!! This book, it touched me so deeply and intensely that I can honestly say it’s now my Tessa Bailey’s favorite, and I’m not saying it lightly because this woman’s work is one of my literary addictions!
The rawness of Dom and Rosie’s emotions, their struggles, their conflicts, and their love was so powerfully described I felt right there with them, not only in their heads, but their hearts. The craving and longing for one another was so REAL that made me teary eyed more than one, but when Rosie chip finally fell and she realized that she was just as much to blame, I was DEVASTATED right along with her.
All this time, she’d blamed Dominic entirely for the decline of their relationship. But she’d been equally to blame.
That scene was heartbreaking! not only because of its perfect execution, but because it’s impossible to be in a marriage IRL and not feel what she felt, as well as take a deep introspective look into your own actions, the needs of your partner. It is help and healing power in writing!
And talk about seeing things with new eyes, because much like Rosie, and though we know Dom has some big issues of his own to clear, we start to see the situation with another take, and Dom, OMG, only Tessa Bailey could make a man struggling this way, with such inner turmoils, into one of my most beloved book boyfriends EVER! Yep, just check out come of his quotes, and you’ll understand…
“Listen closely. If I can play ‘just the tip’ with your virgin pussy for a fucking year, I can play the long game to get my wife back. I’m getting you back. Don’t you think for a second that I won’t kill to make us right again.”
“Just tell me what to expect here, Rosie. My body hurts. It wants yours.”
His queen might be on her knees, but he was the one begging for that reward.
This man… His panic, his fear when Rosie said she was leaving, that their marriage was over… His pain shattered my black little heart! Yes, he was all that we know and love of Ms. Bailey’s Alphas but this obsession, his love and his devotion – or dare I say WORSHIP – of his wife were a epic thing on its own. And not to forget, that deliciously fifty mouth *shivers*, and oh so naughty actions and teasing. That may have not been allowed to fulfill their cravings – crazy hippie therapist’s orders, lol – , but this man was LETHAL, and even with no actual sex for a big part of the book, LHoLH was not in any way less hotter or steamier than we are used to by the author. Au contraire, like I’ve mentioned the raw sexual chemistry of these two were UNPARALLELED, much like their therapist said, literally breathtaking. Every time their when near one another, or even with just one look, I felt like fanning myself, to say the least, ahahah. 😉
And talking about Dom, THE GROVEL, it was epic! The whole book is a beautifully and passionately fight from Dominic to get his Rosie back, no matter what he had to do, and what he had to show, he was winning to do anything for her, ANYTHING! And he proved it, over and over again throughout the story. His insecurities and cluelessness just made him more perfect in my eyes, and now he’s right there at the top of my all time favs. And for a man of few words, he kill it, over and over! Swoon…. <3
“My heart. You get that, too. All of it. I’m begging you to take it back before it stops working. You’re my home. I need you with me, Rosie. Please.”
Dominic, I couldn’t stop loving you if they cut the heart out of my chest.”
Ms. Bailey has now left me even more transfixed with her work. In Love Her or Lose Her, we get romance, we get love, we get friendship, we get sexiness, and the big surprise in this one, we get a incomparable introspection inside a marriage and the two sides of the whole that left me in awe with its accuracy, research and heart touching, soul healing therapeutic – even in the shape of a quirky high hippy therapist, lol – depth. I loved every word, every moment of this epic love story. Soulmate kind of love!
Dom and Rosie’s love and marriage was undoubtedly center piece, but I was so deliriously happy not only with the fantastic Just Us League interactions, Georgia and Travis’ – from Fix Her Up, the first book on the series – adorable moments, and those addictive ‘male only scenes’ that left me craving even more for these oh so interesting male discussions, lol, but most of all for every single moment and word starting at that very first meeting, of Bethany and Wes! Ohhhh My Goooooood! I see the most delicious banter coming on, along with a single parent trope couple with enemies to lovers and I. AM. HERE. FOR. IT!!! Can’t freaking wait! <3 <3 <3 <3 <3
Most people didn’t find their soul mates during their lifetime. She’d found Dominic twice.
They were old love, committed love, and fresh, insatiable love all rolled into one.
They were best friends, soul mates . . . and perfectly, eternally flawed.
ARC kindly provided by the author via Avon / Harper Collins for an honest review
Tessa Bailey is originally from Carlsbad, California. The day after high school graduation, she packed her yearbook, ripped jeans and laptop, driving cross-country to New York City in under four days.
Her most valuable life experiences were learned thereafter while waitressing at K-Dees, a Manhattan pub owned by her uncle. Inside those four walls, she met her husband, best friend and discovered the magic of classic rock, managing to put herself through Kingsborough Community College and the English program at Pace University at the same time. Several stunted attempts to enter the work force as a journalist followed, but romance writing continued to demand her attention.
She now lives in Long Island, New York with her husband of eight years and four-year-old daughter. Although she is severely sleep-deprived, she is incredibly happy to be living her dream of writing about people falling in love.