Blog Tour Review: Roan Parrish's BEST LAID PLANS.

Hi & welcome to my stop on the Best Laid Plans blog tour! Thanks to Carina Press for the complimentary ARC. All opinions provided are my own.

Sometimes (often, for me ;) ) you fall in love with a secondary character in a romance & you can’t wait for them to get their HEA. That happened to me with Charlie Matheson, one of the leads in Best Laid Plans.

Brawny but with a gentle soul, Charlie became the caretaker of his younger brother Jack at 17 when their parents died. He carried a huge load on his back for years & now, at 36, he kinda wakes up when he meets Rye Janssen, a *very* grumpy Seattle transplant.

Rye moved to Garnet Run after inheriting a house from his grandfather. Formerly evicted & with no home, Rye has no idea what to do with the falling down abode before him...except to fix up as much as he can with his reduced funds.

But then Charlie—who’s the owner of the hardware & lumber store & possesses a hero complex—offers to help & surly Rye accepts. As they work & spend more time together feelings grow & spark into flame.

Roan Parrish’s books are so emotional & I love it. In addition to being steamy they offer the tenderest of feelings: acceptance & affection & love.

I could eat it up.

Charlie’s spent so much of his time taking care of others that it’s a real treat seeing him being taken care of & even defended. I love seeing him discover what he wants & seeing Rye do everything he can to give it to him. Their earnest & loving convos are lovely.

While I love their dynamic & the mental health rep here (see CW), I couldn’t quite get behind all of the plot. Charlie co-signs for Rye pretty early in their relationship, a decision that seems precipitous to me & that later becomes a point of contention between them.

As much as I love a helping hand, that plot element doesn’t work 100% for me, especially as the relationship between them changes & things—like being involved loosely on a financial level, living together, being romantic— grow more tangled.

Though I have quibbles about Best Laid Plans on a plot level, emotionally it gets me right where I want it. This is another heart-grabbing read. 


CW:


​Charlie has intrusive thoughts but has been to therapy & learned strategies for dealing with them. Rye is alienated from his family.

4⭐️. Best Laid Plans is out on 02/23. 

Thanks for joining me at my stop on the Blog Tour! I hope you'll stop by again!