My Killer Vacation by Tessa Bailey – A Book Review

Spoiler-Free Overview

Taylor just wants to have a nice, relaxing vacation with her brother, Jude, in Cap Cod. She wants the sun, the beach, and a claw foot bathtub. But fate, or just serious bad luck, gets in the way. When Taylor and Jude check into their vacation home, they find the owner dead in the laundry room and peepholes in the bedroom. The police want to blame it on a previous tenants’ dad who found out about the peepholes. Only the dead owner’s sister isn’t convinced the police are trying hard enough to solve the murder. So, she hires a bounty hunter to investigate. Enter Myles. 

Myles is a gruff Boston police officer turned bounty hunter after a case went sour. He takes the job to look into the Cap Cod murder for a friend of the sister. Instantly, he runs into Taylor, who’s decided that she needs to be more bold and wants to investigate this murder as well. The two don’t hit it off. In fact, they bicker and push each other’s buttons throughout the book.

The duo keeps running into each other as they each work on the case. Myles grows increasingly protective of Taylor as she finds herself in the middle of some shady activity. Adding more emotions on top, they each are lusting after each other in a gnawing, thought consuming way. 

Liz’s Thoughts and Feelings

This book has potential. But according to daddy Goodreads, it’s only 295 pages long! For a book that has both romance and murder mystery plot lines, that’s not enough pages. Maybe I’m asking for too much or blaming the insta-lust on a small page count, but I just like a thicker book.

The murder mystery was simple, but as a secondary plot line for the romance to play off of, it absolutely worked. It wasn’t boring, but I wasn’t surprised by anything. 

Myles and Taylor are the quintessential grumpy x sunshine couple. He’s rough around the edges, sarcastic and mean, oh, and he drives a Harley. Taylor is a second-grade teacher that dreams of bubble baths and won’t stop hassling Myles to address his emotions in a healthy way. I enjoyed that while Taylor is all rainbows and happiness, she’s trying to explore and find a wilder side in her. That’s what draws her to Myles. And it makes her feel so much more real when she’s facing the same reality a lot of us face – battling our desire for safety and predictability with our wants for something more exciting that gets our heart racing. 

I, though, prefer a reverse grumpy x sunshine, but that’s solely personal preference. I am a grumpy person that likes things my way, married to a sunshiny ball of chaos and warmth. We all like to see ourselves on the page once and a while.

This is a Tessa Bailey book, so of course the spice is very nice. The dirty talk is always fantastic, and we got something a little darker and rougher than I’ve normally read in a Tessa Bailey book. There’s an exploration of sexual wants which is really enjoyable. It’s presented in a way that’s both desperate and unsure from our characters. 

Now, to my gripe. It’s very insta-lusty. Which normally I don’t mind, because it’s a reality of our world. (I hate insta-love though.) Lust at first sight happens constantly in real life. But, this timeline was way too fast for me. The majority of the book happens while Taylor is on vacation (as the title implies), but her vacation is only a week. Which means their entire romance is a week! No one should be making life altering decisions after a handful of days.

Yet, the romantic scenes we do get are sweet and nice. Myles starts showing a softer side of himself to Taylor, and she’s able to see the kindness in him. Overall, it’s a lovely romance and I can see myself picking it up again, but I just wanted more time with our couple before they ride off into the sunset.