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Q: are you/could you be a light packer?

If a hard-hitting romance with a heroine who must find what happiness looks like on the other side of loss + a charming Irish hero on a captivating sailboat journey sounds like your cup of tea then I definitely recommend Trish Doller’s Float Plan.

Anna Beck’s beloved fiancé Ben committed suicide nearly one year before & she’s been in a fog of grief since. When she receives a reminder that they’re supposed to leave on the sailing expedition he planned, she quickly leaves by herself without telling her best friend or family or quitting her job.

Also without having totally mastered learning sailing a boat on her own.

A scare on the first leg of the journey convinces her she needs help & she enlists Keane Sullivan, Irish rogue & all around sweetheart. As Keane tells her in one moment, he’s had to learn to live with loss, too, after his leg was amputated & his professional sailing dreams were threatened...if not destroyed altogether.

Anna & Keane will journey to Puerto Rico together & then she’ll continue without him to Trinidad. Only things don’t really work out as planned.

With outstanding, vibrant descriptions of sailing, the places Anna & Keane travel to, & the people they encounter, Float Plan feels like an adventure. The storytelling is fine, the voices wiggled their ways into my heart, & the friends to lovers slow burn tale is so moving—though I did feel like things get a little anticlimactic toward the end. Temporarily.

While Keane is a stud, without question the real standout for me is Anna, who makes the decision to leave everything she’s ever known & along the way learns how capable she really is & what the world looks like—what her life can look like—from the tiller of her boat.


TW:

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Anna’s fiancé Ben committed suicide before the book begins but she flashbacks to finding his body. Second, there’s an uncomfortable moment for me when Keane segues from his discussion of a series of statues honoring slaves who died off Martinique to “honor[jng] the memory of those we’ve lost”—in her case Ben. I found the suggestion of comparison somewhat unsettling.

Leo stuck his hands in his pockets and sauntered toward her, taking a spot
beside her at the edge of the roof. “So. You’re a long way from home. How long have
you been in the city?”

Her smile wavered, the reminder of her lies of omission twisting bolts on the
sides of her throat. “Oh, not long.” She turned and propped her arms on the wall,
looking out over the city blocks. “I wish my mother could see this.”

“You said she owns a dancing school. Was she your teacher?”

“When I was little, yes. Around age ten, she thought I needed something a little
more advanced.” She gave him a prim look. “It paid off, too, don’t you know? You might
remember me from a certain national Red Rover Yogurt commercial.”

He turned slightly, squinting an eye at her. “Wait a minute. No way.”

Reese pushed off the wall and performed the soft shoe routine she’d done
thousands of times—mostly as a party trick—since the age of eleven. “No preservatives
or chemicals, we’ve got your all-natural meals,” she sang, “Choose Red Rover products
and kick up your heels.”

“Holy shit.” He stared at her, dumbfounded. “The audacity of me to ask out a
celebrity.”

“Please.” She fluffed her hair. “I put my pants on one leg at a time like everyone
else.”

They seemed to gravitate toward each other naturally, as if there was no other
option, until their faces were a handful of inches apart. “How about those shorts?” he
said gruffly. “You get those on the same way?”

A hot, fizzy stream of awareness circled and danced in her midsection. This was
flirting. But not the kind she was used to. Where she worried about every line out of her
mouth, worrying they would come across too desperate. Or if the guy would think she
was funny. No, it was easy as breathing to pull back the edge of her coat, drawing his
attention downward. “What? These old things?”

“Yeah.” A muscle ticked in his cheek. “Those.”

She leaned in like they were sharing a secret and watched his eyes darken. “I
have to wiggle around a little to get these on.”

They exhaled into each other’s space, not bothering to hide the fact that both of
them were breathing faster. “Damn, Reese.”

There was a wealth of meaning in those two words. Not just, damn, you look
good in those shorts. But damn, this attraction between them was not typical. “I know,”
she said in a rush, their mouths almost touching. She wasn’t sure what made her pull
away before he could close the distance for a kiss. Maybe it was to gather her wits or a
tug from her conscience. But she took a long pull of February air to perform
maintenance on her short-circuiting brain. “So, um…” She resisted the urge to fan
herself. “How long have you owned the bakery?”

With his own centering breath, Leo slowly settled back in a safe distance away.
“Four years,” he said, voice gravelly. “Took me a while after culinary school to build the
capital and find the right people. The right place. Didn’t want to rush it.”

“Capital?” Her question hung in the air for several seconds before she realized
what a stupid assumption she’d made. “Forget I said that. I just…I thought with your
father being who he is…”

“That I would have an automatic investor?” He shrugged a shoulder. “Natural to
assume that. Don’t worry about it.” There was an assessing glance in her direction, as if
he wasn’t sure whether to say more. She held her breath, hoping he would. “I guess it
didn’t feel right taking money for something he doesn’t have a real interest in. Baking.
I’m not saying he’s unsupportive. We’re just about different things. Felt better doing it on
my own.”

“That’s admirable.” She wanted to tell him how much she could relate. Currently.
Trying to grasp something that felt just within reach, refusing any shortcuts. How it could
feel scary and unfair one minute, rewarding the next. “And I guess you found the right
people. Jackie and Tad.”

Warmth moved in his expression. “Yeah. Tad was actually an usher downstairs
when I met him. We interviewed Jackie together. She’d just dropped out of nursing
school because the emotional toll was more than she expected.”

“So she went for the exact opposite.”

“Only for a while. I doubt she’ll be at the Cookie Jar forever. But I’ll be glad to
have her as long as she puts up with my grumpy ass.”

“You’re not coming across as grumpy as you did Saturday night.”

“That’s because I’m trying to charm you into going out with me. Is it working?”

Her laugh drifted out over the rooftops. “Maybe. How long until the grump
returns?”
​
“I skipped lunch. So…imminently.”

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Tessa Bailey is originally from Carlsbad, California. The day after high school
graduation, she packed her yearbook, ripped jeans and laptop, driving cross-country to
New York City in under four days.

Her most valuable life experiences were learned thereafter while waitressing at K-Dees,
a Manhattan pub owned by her uncle. Inside those four walls, she met her husband,
best friend and discovered the magic of classic rock, managing to put herself through
Kingsborough Community College and the English program at Pace University at the
same time. Several stunted attempts to enter the workforce as a journalist followed, but
romance writing continued to demand her attention.

She now lives in Long Island, New York with her husband of eleven years and seven-
year-old daughter. Although she is severely sleep-deprived, she is incredibly happy to be living her dream of writing about people falling in love.

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