🏒Dislike to Love
🥎Softball Pitcher X Hockey Rookie
🏒Reformed Playboy
🥎Teach Me
🏒Fake Dating
🥎He Falls First and Hard

This book was such a refreshing read. I genuinely enjoyed every moment of it! 💛

Robbie Corrigan may fall fast, but his insta-love felt sweet, natural, and totally heart-melting. And even though Skylar Paige falls for him in just seven days, their connection builds in a way that feels both believable and meant to be. Some love stories are just that easy to fall into. 💫

Robbie is everything you'd want in a golden retriever hero—supportive, caring, and absolutely lovable. Skylar didn’t stand a chance, and honestly, neither did I! 😍

Madden didn’t stand out much in this book, but that just makes me even more curious and excited to read his story next! The side characters stayed in the background, which helped keep the focus right where it belonged—on Skylar and Robbie’s sweet romance.

Definitely recommend if you’re in the mood for something feel-good and heartwarming! 📚✨

Thank you to the Harper360 team and Avon for the opportunity to read and review this book!

I really enjoyed this book. I’ve been in a reading slump and this pulled me out of it. A light easy read which had me rooting for the happy ending. I loved the character of Robbie the most.

Oh this was a great read. I loved the chemistry between Redbeard and Rocket!
Two athletes at the top of their game, so perfectly suited to each other, it's a wonder they can't see it for themselves. Robbie is adorable as he comes to realise that his past does not define who he really he is but he's going to have to work hard to get past Skylar's defences and convince her that he's serious especially when she's in love with her brother's best friend.

When Robbie peruades her into a fake dating scheme, to help her save face in her family's ridiculous annual contest, it offers him the perfect opportunity to show his true colours. Will he be able to convince Skylar that his infamous past is behind him.

Bailey's writing is superb and even though we know the eventual outcome, boy do we have fun getting there. The sex is pitcher perfect, hot and spicy, the characters perfectly brougth to life and the story spot on.

This is book four in the Big Shots series but could be read as a standalone!
I adored this book. It is very much insta love which isn’t usually my favorite but something about this series has me eating it up 😂
I just love how passionate these two are with each other, the tension and slow burn 🔥
The plot was great, I especially liked the focus on family and expectations which was handled so well. It was funny but there was a lot of depth that really added to the characters.
Another fantastic book by Tessa and can’t wait to read more 💕

✨ Baseball/Softball sports romance
✨ Fake dating
✨ Enemies to lovers
✨ He falls first

💕 The nicknames
💕 The lessons
💕 Crazy family dynamics
💕 The tension

I thoroughly enjoyed this addition to the series! Robbie was adorable in all his earnestness and focus on Skylar. Insta Love but done in a plausible way where it felt like they had known each other longer. They suited each other so well. I liked both main characters and thought both were well developed and complemented each other throughout the story. Second favourite in the series (after Fangirl Down),

Tropes:
- Insta love
- Fake dating
- Love lessons
- (Thinks they are) In love with someone else
- He falls first

Madden and Eve’s story next please!

I usually love Tessa Baileys books but I'm really not sure about this one 😞

To be honest I think I have outgrown through insta love trope, and I need more of a slow burn and lots of yearning now I'm getting older.

I really liked Robbie, I knew I would do from the moment we met him in Au Pair Affair with those Orgasm Donor tops! But I didn't vibe with Skylar unfortunately.

The spice was good, the banter was great, but overall I just don't think this was for me!

I’m still not sure whether Pitcher Perfect is a 3 (It was OK) or 4 (Liked It) Star Read so I’ve rounded up and gone with 4 x Stars.

Even though Tessa Bailey is one of my favourite authors, I struggled with Pitcher Perfect at the beginning and I don’t know why because I liked both the FMC and MMC. Maybe it’s because when Robbie was first introduced in The Au-Pair Affair, he was really juvenile (he and his team/roommate referred to themselves as Orgasm Donors) and perhaps like Skylar I struggled to move past that first impression and embrace him as a potential love interest.

As the book progressed, I began to like him more. I thought the dynamic of both Skylar and Robbie being athletes in different sports was interesting and I appreciate how supportive Robbie was of Skylar and how he bought her entire family Boston University t-shirts to wear when they usually only showed their support for Brown (they were all alumnus apart from Skylar, who got rejected).

I might not have liked Pitcher Perfect as much as the previous Big Shots instalment but I still enjoyed it.

I knew I was going to love Robbie, but I didn’t know I was going to LOVE him. And I wanted to saddle up beside him to ride into battle for Skylar because I adored her too. The two of them just *fit* together.

The initial meeting between Robbie and Skylar was set up in Dream Girl Drama, and I loved getting to see it from their perspective in this one. Robbie defined the “he falls first, fast, and hard” lightning strike moment, something Tessa Bailey does so well. What I loved most about how that played out with Robbie was that meeting Skylar inherently changed him, or rather put him back on track to the kind of man he was raised to and wanted to be. Robbie had a past, and I loved the way it was handled from his perspective in that it was acknowledged, but from the moment he met Skylar she was it for him. She was a wake-up call for him, and he rose to the occasion. (In more ways than one because this is a Tessa Bailey book, but we’ll get there.)

Skylar was a firecracker, but also someone who struggled to find her place and her voice among in her family. She was such a standout, yet often made to feel like no matter how hard she tried or how much she achieved, it was never quite up to par with the family expectations. The idea of Robbie helping her make Madden jealous to ultimately win his affections might now have worked for me if it hadn’t been so clear that that was at best simply the idea of Madden that she was really in love with. The spark between Skylar and Robbie was present from the first moment, despite Skylar’s reluctance. It quickly became clear that Robbie was exactly the kind of man who would elevate her, see her, and give her all the affection and love in the way she needed and craved.

It wouldn’t be a Tessa Bailey book if some of those needs weren’t of the steamy variety. Robbie was cocky for a reason because the man knows how to deliver. And when matched with a partner who cared about her needs and her desires, Skylar flourished in her own right when it came to meeting him move for move. It was more of a slow burn to get down to it, and it worked so well for the story to play out that way with the two of them.

I know I’m forgetting things I wanted to comment on but this is already super long. I just really loved this one. I laughed at the banter, I swooned at the romance. I had a ton of fun reading. Thank you to Avon via NetGalley for the eARC in exchange for an honest review.

Tessa Bailey does it again! I’m absolutely loving this series and was thrilled to receive an ARC.

Pitcher Perfect is Tessa Bailey at her best - funny, sexy, and heartwarming.

I loved both Robbie and Skylar, the tension was delicious and I enjoyed the backdrop of the fake-dating and Page Stakes as their feelings developed.

I’m already mourning how long it’ll be until we have the next book the series - please, please give me Madden and Eve 😭

4.5 stars rounded to 5! Thank you again to HarperCollins for the ARC.

Pitcher Perfect is a classic Tessa Bailey romance with her signature spice and characters, the pace was good and it kept me entertained from the beginning. I liked that characters from other books in the Big Shots series are mentioned giving the world more depth. I also liked that both Skylar and Robbie are very competitive sports people and this make an interesting dynamic between them both. There were also a few tender moments between Skylar and Robbie that talked about not feeling good enough and being an over achiever, which gave a lot of emotional depth to their characters. Ultimately, their relationship helped each other to grow as characters, to demand respect from those around them and feel that they're just as worthy which was really sweet.

The fake dating trope was fun, but I didn't feel that Skylar's crush, Madden, had a lot of depth or much page time which made it hard to understand why Skylar was in love with him. That also being said the subplot with Skylar's best friend Eve felt a little disjointed from the main plot. I was also a little surprised at how much Robbie's personality changed because of his love for Skylar, especially in a short span of time. I would have liked more friction between their characters at the start instead of Robbie just falling in love with her at soon as he meets her in the softball vs hockey game. I wasn't as invested in the romance as maybe I've been with some of her other books, but was still a fun read..

Overall, I enjoyed the book and it kept me hooked from the start and was an easy read.

Big thank you to the publisher and Tessa Bailey for the ARC - I love a Tessa Bailey book and this one really didn't disappoint.

It's an insta love type story with a bit of fake dating in there. We also love a sports romance and I really enjoyed the hockey/softball twist.

It's a fun, steamy, sports romance that's an easy read. Really enjoyed it.

So.... I can't remember the name of the book, but I've read almost this exact story before. Family trip, competition, fake dating... except they were staying in a little secluded cabin instead of an upstairs bedroom.

The characters in this felt really wooden -- very much telling and not showing. It was more of a frustrating read and I wasn't enjoying it at all. I'm sorry. I love Tessa Bailey, but this one was a miss for me.

Hmm. This really wasn’t great. I normally like TB books for a nice easy read, but this just didn’t do it.

The relationship is ridiculous. He basically falls in love with her in about 40 pages and decides to change his entire personality for her. She’s ‘in love’ with her brothers best friend who she’s known for like 10+ years but can’t stop staring at him and acting like a moron even though her liking him is a ‘secret’.

Her family are awful to her. His friends are awful.

This one just missed the mark unfortunately.

2.75/5, rounded up

Thanks Netgalley for the ARC

This felt very insta love to me which is never really a trope I love. The enemies to lovers point doesn’t really count because they aren’t actually enemies just more so annoyed with each other before hooking up? Very mixed feelings about this

Pitcher Perfect is the fourth novel in Tessa Bailey’s Hot Shots series. Despite owning the first three, this is the first in the series I’ve read, though you can be sure I’ll be readdressing that balance soon! Pitcher Perfect is everything you’d expect from a Tessa Bailey fake dating novel and I loved it for that.

In Pitcher Perfect we meet NHL rookie Robbie who is living his best bachelor lifestyle, that is until he meets pitcher Skylar at a hockey vs baseball grudge match. Skylar immediately pegs Robbie as a playboy and wants nothing to do with him, but after he wins a bet to take her out and her teammate for her families upcoming games drops out, the pair hatch a plan. Robbie will help Skylar at the Page Stakes and be her guide on wooing her long time crush (her brother’s best friend!) whilst trying to reform her view of him. Through a series of contests that require them to trust each other, Robbie and Skylar grow closer and closer until their fake relationship starts to feel like the realest thing they’ve ever known and the sizzling lessons in sensuality burn out of control.

This book was honestly so much fun. I’m a big fan of duel POV and it worked perfectly here. Our man Robbie had it bad for Skylar pretty much from the get go, whilst she was most definitely wary, and yet boy does he prove himself to her. The Page Stakes were wild, and completely unhinged, the best part though was seeing what a great team Skylar and Robbie made. The longer they spent together, the more real things began to feel between them, with Madden becoming a second thought rather than Skylar’s main focus. I really liked how the pair tried to encourage one another and brought out the best in each other too. It was also only when they were together that they really felt they could be themselves which worked so well.

I love Tessa Bailey and totally enjoyed this one. Now I’m going to go back and read the others.

Fabulous! A fake boyfriend/ girlfriend story at the heart and yet the book covers so much more. It rooms through family dynamics and confidence and what happened when you feel the odd one out in your family. The book is also a little frenetic and mad with special family olympics where teams compete in bizarre medically unsound games which is fun but also a tiny bit sad. The sporting prowess of the characters is well told but t(e sport itself isn’t made too much of. The book 8 about relationships and where to go when you need love and care.

A rounded up 3.75 ⭐️

Having read the three previous books in this series you know you’re walking into something that’s going to border on unhinged (still reeling over the back door play in book 1) however, this book stepped up!

I loved Robbie and Skyler’s story - insta-love Robbie is swoonworthy. I would have liked to see more build up to the week long event, even just some initial convos to set the scene on how they planned to approach going from complete strangers to “dating”, I’m shocked that there was no warm up to build tension - feels like a missed opportunity. Especially when Elton acts like a protective sibling, did he not think it was a radical flip for his straight laced, by the book sister to meet someone in a rivalry game, who made a pretty poor first impression, who she reluctantly goes for OJ & Coffee with, and then instantly falls for him so much that she decides to take him to her family event? Haven’t they heard of stranger danger?? Not only that, Skylar has met Robbie ONCE ahead of sharing a room with him 😒 wow.

However, Robbie *steps up*, Robbie is the basis of this 3.75⭐️ review, in fact, he probably deserves 5⭐️ - he’s a reformed playboy, acts immediately on his feelings, doesn’t shy away from a challenge and *literally* saves his “girlfriend” from drowning - Robbie, sir, take a bow, you’ve earned it!

Also, the third act (sort of) break up - I wanted Skylar to be the one to chase him, Robbie had don’t *NOTHING* to cause her doubt, sure he had a past, she literally met him while he was talking about his encounters but she sees it on a website, it gets a little real and she’s hopping in Madden’s truck for a “friendly” drink? 🤔 and when she gets cold feet and returns home, Robbie’s there and she simply says “I’m sorry” and leaves it at that 😲🤯

Thankfully, again, Robbie saves the day and shows up once again to show how committed he is and that then spurs Skylar on to make her grand gesture - it’s about damn time! 👏👏

And we, finally, get our HEA, thank you!

I liked the Madden/Eve set up, these side characters have got so much potential, I’m here for it!

This is exactly what I've come to expect from Tessa Bailey.

Insta attraction+character development+a lot of spice

Robbie and Skylar were cute, and I liked that they were both athletes in this one. They were equally as pivotal to each other in terms of becoming better people. I just had a hard time believing characters could change that much or love so deeply over the course of a couple of days. Even if they knew each other from social circles in Boston would help me buy in a bit more.

this book, like all of Tessa Bailey's, is the best version of a man down BAD. if you are looking for a fantastically funny fake dating, brother's anti-best friend, reformed playboy, do yourself a favor and pick this up. you're welcome.

Actual rating 3.5 stars!

When a friendly bet leads to a date, Robbie gets caught up in helping Skylar catch her childhood crush, Madden (her brother's best friend). What starts out as a fake dating ploy quickly turns into something more real, especially when they team up for a family competition and realise their bond runs a lot deeper than they expected.

Tessa Bailey really knows how to write those classic tropes like fake dating and opposites attract. And this was a fun read!

That said, while the setup was promising, the romance felt a bit rushed, especially Robbie's side, which leaned into insta-love territory. Their journey from strangers to "soulmates" in less than a week, while Skylar's still hung up on someone else, made their emotional connection feel a little unearned, especially with the minimal buildup or conflict.
I also missed the friendship dynamic between Robbie and Mailer, which was such a standout in earlier books but felt almost nonexistent here. Even Skylar's best friend Eve and her relationship with Madden, felt very stagnant and it would have been cool to see them as more fleshed out characters.

Still, the story had its adorable and funny moments. I liked seeing Skylar gain more confidence, and Robbie's slow transformation from a player to a head over heels teammate While it wasn't my favorite in the series, if you're a lover of sports romance and light-hearted rom-coms then you'll enjoy this one.

Thanks so much to Harper360 for the review copy via
NetGalley - all opinions are my own!