In burlesque, timing changes everything—
A veil falls, hearts pause, breath catches.
Love was always there, hiding backstage.
Some love stories begin with a spark. Others smolder for years before finally catching flame. Tessa Bailey’s Catch Her If You Can delivers the fifth installment in her Big Shots series, offering readers a marriage-of-convenience romance that strips away pretense to reveal the raw vulnerability beneath. This standalone novel proves that sometimes the longest journeys are the ones that lead us back to where we’ve always belonged.
A Foundation Built on Secrets
The Big Shots series has progressively explored the interconnected lives of friends navigating love against the backdrop of professional sports. From Skylar and Wells in Fangirl Down to the au pair adventures in The Au Pair Affair, Bailey has crafted a world where hockey players and baseball stars collide with extraordinary women. Dream Girl Drama and Pitcher Perfect continued building this universe, and now Catch Her If You Can by Tessa Bailey brings Madden Donahue’s eight-year wait to a beautifully aching conclusion.
Madden, the newest catcher for the New York Yankees, has carried a torch for Eve Mitchell since they were teenagers in Cumberland, Rhode Island. Eve, who owns the struggling Gilded Garden burlesque club, has harbored equally powerful feelings—feelings she buried deep because her best friend Skylar called “dibs” on Madden when they were fourteen. This foundational secret becomes the cornerstone of their entire relationship, a promise Eve kept even as it slowly fractured her heart.
When Eve’s sister abandons her five-year-old twins, Lark and Landon, without health insurance or explanation, Madden proposes an unconventional solution: marriage for the benefits package. What begins as practical arrangement ignites into something neither can control when a viral moment during a Yankees game thrusts their secret union into the spotlight.
The Art of Emotional Excavation
Bailey’s greatest strength in this novel lies in her ability to excavate the layers of self-protection her characters have built over years. Eve isn’t simply a woman struggling with small-town judgment; she’s someone who has internalized that judgment so completely that she believes protecting others from association with her is an act of love. The daughter of a strip club owner, she transformed her father’s establishment into an elegant burlesque lounge, attempting to rebrand not just a business but her entire identity. Yet Cumberland’s residents refuse to see the distinction, and Eve has spent a lifetime accepting that she’s the problem.
Madden, conversely, carries the weight of being unwanted by his Irish family, sent to live with an aunt in America as a teenager. Baseball became his method of belonging, a sport entirely foreign to his heritage that he mastered to fit in. His feelings for Eve represent the one authentic desire he’s allowed himself, and watching him navigate the Yankees organization’s concerns about his wife’s profession exposes the vulnerability beneath his stoic exterior.
The secondary characters enrich rather than distract from the central romance. Veda, the rockabilly musician who becomes Eve’s unlikely friend and eventual business partner, provides comic relief while representing hope and reinvention. The twins, Lark and Landon, ground the story in reality—their need for stability and love creates stakes beyond romantic fulfillment. Skylar and Elton, who appeared in earlier series installments, offer continuity and context, reminding readers that Bailey’s Big Shots universe thrives on interconnection.
Where the Performance Falters
Despite its emotional resonance, Catch Her If You Can by Tessa Bailey occasionally stumbles under the weight of its own ambitions. The pacing suffers in the middle section, where Eve’s pattern of running from Madden becomes repetitive. While understandable given her psychological makeup, the cycle of connection-panic-separation occurs one too many times before the narrative momentum carries forward again. Readers invested in seeing these characters communicate may find themselves frustrated by manufactured obstacles.
The media circus surrounding Madden’s viral moment feels simultaneously over-the-top and underdeveloped. Bailey gestures toward serious commentary about how athletes’ personal lives become public consumption, but the resolution arrives too quickly and too neatly. The tabloid frenzy that threatens their relationship disperses with surprising ease, leaving readers wondering if the conflict was necessary at all.
Additionally, the burlesque club subplot—while thematically important to Eve’s journey—occasionally distracts from the romance. The fundraising efforts, construction of the Jam Jar music venue, and various performer dramas create texture but sometimes crowd the central love story. Full Bush Rhonda, a deliberately outrageous character meant to challenge Eve’s comfort zone, works better as concept than execution, her scenes veering toward farce when the rest of the narrative maintains emotional authenticity.
The book’s treatment of class and reputation deserves both praise and critique. Bailey doesn’t shy from exploring how Eve’s background affects every aspect of her life, from bus stop interactions with other mothers to Yankees management questioning her worth. However, the resolution—Eve starting a successful interior design firm and moving to Wisconsin—feels like an escape rather than a true reckoning with the prejudices she faced. The story suggests leaving Cumberland is necessary for happiness, which undermines its message about self-acceptance.
The Language of Desire
Bailey’s prose shines brightest in moments of physical intimacy and emotional revelation. Her dialogue captures the distinct rhythms of each character: Madden’s Irish cadence that occasionally surfaces under stress, Eve’s defensive humor, Veda’s chaotic enthusiasm. The author has earned her reputation for crafting steamy scenes that serve character development rather than existing for titillation alone. When Madden and Eve finally consummate their marriage, the encounter reveals everything they’ve been too afraid to say aloud.
The author’s trademark “dirty talk” appears judiciously rather than gratuitously, each heated exchange exposing the characters’ psychological needs. Madden’s possessiveness stems from years of feeling disposable; Eve’s exhibitionist tendencies connect directly to her desire to control how she’s perceived. Bailey understands that eroticism lives in specificity, and she delivers scenes that feel both universal in their passion and particular to these individuals.
The Big Picture: Series Integration and Standalone Success
While Catch Her If You Can functions as a complete story, readers familiar with the Big Shots series will appreciate the deeper connections. Skylar and Robbie’s relationship from Fangirl Down provides context for Eve’s friendship guilt. Elton’s journey toward finding love appears in glimpses, setting up future installments. The epilogue jumps seven years forward, showing not just Madden and Eve’s happiness but the entire friend group thriving—a technique Bailey employs effectively to give readers the long-term satisfaction they crave.
For readers new to Bailey’s work or the series, this book offers an accessible entry point. The backstory unfolds naturally through dialogue and memory, never feeling like information dumps. The romance follows familiar marriage-of-convenience beats while subverting expectations through its emphasis on emotional rather than external obstacles.
Recommendations for Similar Journeys
Readers who connect with the marriage-of-convenience setup and small-town setting in Catch Her If You Can might explore:
- Lucy Score’s “Things We Never Got Over” – Features a grumpy hero and a heroine rebuilding her life in a judgmental small town
- Kennedy Ryan’s “Before I Let Go“ – Explores a marriage dissolving and reforming with raw emotional honesty
- Helen Hoang’s “The Heart Principle” – Tackles self-worth and finding authentic connection despite internal and external obstacles
- Sarah Adams’s “The Cheat Sheet“ – Delivers friends-to-lovers tension between a professional athlete and a woman hiding her feelings
- Tessa Bailey’s “Secretly Yours” – Another Bailey romance featuring a heroine rebuilding her reputation and a hero who’s loved her for years
The Final Curtain
Catch Her If You Can by Tessa Bailey succeeds more often than it stumbles, delivering a romance that earns its happily-ever-after through genuine character growth. Madden and Eve’s journey from teenagers stealing glances to partners building a life together satisfies because Bailey doesn’t take shortcuts. Their love story required eight years of patient longing and six months of forced proximity to finally break through the walls they’d built. The result feels authentic rather than convenient, messy rather than manufactured.
The novel excels at depicting how past trauma—whether from family rejection or community judgment—shapes our capacity for vulnerability. Eve’s inability to believe she deserves Madden stems from a lifetime of being told she’s less-than. Madden’s determination to prove his worth through baseball connects to his original family’s rejection. Their healing occurs not through grand gestures but through consistent presence, through choosing each other repeatedly even when running feels safer.
Bailey’s Big Shots series has established itself as contemporary sports romance with genuine emotional heft, and this installment maintains that standard. While the pacing occasionally lags and certain subplots overcomplicate the narrative, the core romance delivers the satisfaction readers seek. Madden and Eve’s story reminds us that sometimes love means waiting, sometimes it means fighting, and sometimes it means finally believing we’re worth catching.
