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Bestselling author Tessa Bailey talks to Mary Calvi about her new book "Dream Girl Drama"

Author Tessa Bailey dishes on her new book "Dream Girl Drama"
Author Tessa Bailey dishes on her new book "Dream Girl Drama" 04:19

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New York Times bestselling author Tessa Bailey is heating up February with the release this week of her new book "Dream Girl Drama." It's the third book in her spicy romance series "Big Shots," and, she estimates, the 70th book she's published.

The "Big Shots" series has a sports theme and started with the book "Fangirl Down," which is centered around golf. Bailey told CBS News New York's Mary Calvi that the book was a tough sell and she doesn't even watch golf.

"But I had this idea in my head of a golfer falling for his caddy," Bailey said. "I really wanted to write that book and decided to start a sports series around it."

"Dream Girl Drama" is about a harp prodigy who has lead a sheltered life in Connecticut.

"One night she has this chance encounter with a hockey player, a professional hockey player," Bailey told Calvi. "They have this magic moment. The sparks are flying. They really have this connection. And then they show up later that night at the same dinner and they realize their parents are engaged."

Calvi asked Bailey how she's been able to write so many books over about a dozen years.

"It's a compulsion," Bailey said. "I wake up and I want to write. Once I start a love story, I feel like I'm leaving them hanging if I don't get in there every day and further the story. It's something I enjoy. I'm an early riser, four, five o'clock in the morning. I can usually finish my word county by 10 am. That's when I feel like the world is starting to bombard me with emails, telephone calls, or my husband asks me for something."

Bailey said before she starts writing, she has a routine that involves games. 

"I have to do my New York Times games, Wordle, Strands, and Connections, and then I can start writing. I feel like that wakes my brain up," she said.

Bailey can write a book the length of "Dream Girl Drama" in six to eight weeks. 

"The editing process, which is a lot more involved and where the magic happens, is another month added on," Bailey explained. "All told, it's about three to four months."

Bailey is not only a writer of romance, she's also been a big reader of the genre since she was 13 years old. 

"It's my one true love," Bailey said. "It's the only thing that draws me in and holds my attention. It's the most hopeful thing in the world."

Bailey's fans won't have to wait long for her next romance after "Dream Girl Drama."

"There's another book coming out after "Dream Girl Drama," called "Pitcher Perfect," Bailey said. "This one features a woman athlete. She's a division one softball pitcher. I feel like women are having a moment in sports and I wanted to highlight that."

You can read an excerpt from "Dream Girl Drama" and purchase the book below.

The CBS New York Book Club focuses on books connected to the Tri-State Area in their plots and/or authors. The books may contain adult themes. 

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"Dream Girl Drama" by Tessa Bailey 

dreamgirldrama-pb-1.jpg
Avon Books

From the publisher: 

When professional hockey player Sig Gauthier's car breaks down and his phone dies, he treks into a posh private country club to call a tow truck, where he encounters the alluring Chloe Clifford, the manic pixie dream girl who captivates him immediately with her sense of adventure and penchant for stealing champagne.

Sparks fly during a moonlight kiss and the enamored pair can't wait to see each other again, but when Sig finally arrives to meet his dad's new girlfriend over dinner, Chloe is confusingly also there. Turns out the girlfriend is Chloe's mother. Oh, and they're engaged.

Sig's dream girl is his future stepsister.

Though the pair is now wary of being involved romantically, Chloe, a sheltered harp prodigy, yearns to escape her controlling mother. Sig promises to teach her the ins and outs of independence in Boston—but not inside his bedroom. They both know there can never be more than friendship between a famous hockey player and his high-society, soon-to-be stepsister. But keeping their relationship platonic grows harder amid the developing family drama, especially knowing they were meant for so much more…

Tessa Bailey lives on Long Island

"Dream Girl Drama" by Tessa Bailey (ThriftBooks) $16



Excerpt: "Dream Girl Drama" by Tessa Bailey

She laughed, and [Sig] smiled enough to notice his facial muscles shifting. Stretching. Damn. Damn. Beautiful and fun and quick. He suddenly couldn't care less if he made it to dinner tonight. He'd let his phone charge well past 100 percent, too. Just sitting there talking to this girl. Looking at her. There was something big and scary happening inside of his chest that he couldn't name or explain. Only that he wanted, needed, to let it happen.

Somehow, he knew that she wasn't a choice.

"We'll sit here, since it's the closest to an outlet." Chloe indicated that he should take a seat on a leather couch the color of whiskey when it's held up to the light. She rummaged in her purse a moment and took out a white phone charger, kneeling down to plug it into the wall and holding out her hand for his phone, giving him a riveting view of Chloe from behind. "You'll be back up and running in no time."

His gaze traveled up the backs of her thighs. "I don't seem to be in a rush anymore."

"Hmm. I bet." She leaned sideways and lifted her chin to look over his shoulder. "I need to wait for the bartender to turn his back so I can steal our drinks."

"Why don't I just buy us some drinks?"

"Money doesn't exchange hands here. That's considered garish," she explained matter-of-factly. "It's all included in the membership fee."

"Out of pure curiosity, about how much is that fee?" "Oh. Huh." She blinked. Frowned. "I have no idea."

Okay, so she was that kind of rich. The kind where she didn't even feel the probable six-figure deduction from her bank account on a yearly basis. Sig had money, but his star had significantly risen since he'd signed his initial contract with the Bearcats—and he'd definitely been undervalued on his way into the league. Hopefully soon, chances were that he could belong to this stuffy-ass club, if he so chose. But would he ever? F*** no.

Right?

Sig had grown up dirt-poor, thanks to his father, but even now that he was financially comfortable, he still shunned the finer things. Didn't want them and definitely didn't need them. An hour ago, Sig wouldn't have believed there was a woman alive who could convince him that a membership card to this place was worth the cash. But hell if he wasn't considering the opposite now. Along with the bare legs that flashed as she sat down on the couch beside him, the hem skimming high, so blessedly high, before she tugged down the white pleats closer to her knees. Crossed her shiny thighs.

Sig swallowed a fist-sized knot. "All right, if drinks are included with a membership, why don't you just go ask for a bottle of champagne?"

"It tastes better when it's an ill-gotten gain."

"You fit right in with the bankers who probably belong to this place."

She flashed him a grin. "It's not that I enjoy ripping anyone off. It's just that . . ." She looked around the lounge and he could tell she'd seen it thousands of times before. "I just try and take some excitement wherever I can. My days are scheduled very meticulously. Early morning practice, followed by lunch with some acquaintance or another. More practice. Followed by tennis lessons—"

"You keep saying practice. Practice for what?"

"I play the harp. I'm a harpist." She fluttered her fingers for emphasis, then proceeded to look at them as if they were foreign objects. "Let me ask you something. What is the point of being labeled a prodigy if I have to practice all the time? Doesn't prodigy mean I just get to show up and be amazing?"

"Do you want me to call one of my harp prodigy friends and ask them for you?"

A laugh burst out of her, satisfying something very deep in his chest. "Are you a hockey prodigy?"

"God no, I had to work my a** off. Now I get to show up and be amazing."

She huffed her lips up into a half smile. Those blue eyes ran laps around his face, like she wanted to see inside of his head. Or maybe surprised to find that he was unexpected to her. And he liked that. He liked being something unknown for her, the way she seemed to be for him. "I think I might like to watch you play hockey sometime, Mister Gauthier."

"Come to Boston. I'll let you watch me do whatever you want."

For long moments, she simply stared at him, as if trying to categorize or figure him out but not being able to quite do so. Eventually, her gaze drifted down to his mouth and hung out there, slowly meandering back up to make eye contact. "Is it very forward and extremely soon if I say I'm attracted to you?" she whispered.

"I'm only pissed I didn't get to say it first." At some point, they'd gravitated closer together on the couch. Though it was hard to say who'd made the move, their thighs were now pressed together, bodies turned slightly, his head tipping down toward hers from above. "I think I might like to watch you play the harp, Miss Clifford."

"Well, we're just a couple of people wanting to watch each other do things, aren't we?"

"Looks that way."

"I have somewhere to be tonight."

His right eye twitched. "You got a boyfriend, Chlo?"

She pursed her lips. "Would you steal me away if I did?"

This was no time to lie. "In a heartbeat."

Her pupils dilated, lips parting on a quiet laugh.

Briefly, her attention ticked left. "The bartender just left to get ice. I'm going to make my move on that bottle of champagne, because I feel myself on the verge of making impulsive decisions."

Sig quirked a brow. "And the champagne is going to stop you?"

"No," she breathed, rising fluidly to her feet. "It's going to help me make excuses for my behavior."

Bemused and horny and frankly, in awe, he watched her butt twitch the whole damn way to the bar, his c*** turning stiff as a mallet in his jeans. Sig wanted desperately for this to be a wild, cosmic attraction thing. A lightning strike of lust. Because these unknown feelings of kismet and possessiveness and fascination that she'd inspired in him so quickly were scary as s***.

But Chloe turned at the bar and gave him a look of conspiratorial mischief and winked. Then, slick as a cat burglar, she draped herself soundlessly over the bar, reached down, and landed on her feet again with a bottle in hand, sticking her tongue out and making the universal symbol for rock on. And his heart lodged permanently behind his jugular.

This was more than lust at first sight.

He didn't have a name for the alternative yet. But the night was young, right?

From DREAM GIRL DRAMA by Tessa Bailey. Copyright © 2025 by Tessa Bailey. Reprinted by permission of Avon Books, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers.

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