I absolutely loved this little story! Orla and Aiden's relationship was so precious and I felt myself falling in love a little too. This was the perfect read at the perfect time. It was lovely to escape into their hilarity for a little while. I would definitely recommend this to anyone who is looking to get lost in a light read.

Wow! It’s not often that a book grabs my attention, so completely, from the first page but this one did just that.
I was immediately pulled into the tension between Orla and Aiden, willing them to find a happy ever after. I can honestly say that although the story followed an honest path, I was truly sorry to read the final words.
If you need a book to get you through this lockdown, this will only cover a short period of time because I couldn’t put it down and finished in a few hours.
Carla Burgess nails the art of creating sexual tension, she understands what her readers want and delivers in true romantic style.

Admittedly, this book started out slow and uneventful. I was tempted to give up 1/3 of the way through, however, in realizing that this tale was being told with more delicacy and nuance than the typical explosion of pheromones and angst, I came to appreciate it all the more.

The plot was simple: Orla and Aiden's five-year estrangement was centered around mis—and lack of—communication. Once they gravitated into each other's sphere, the reconciliation came easily as they both were still in love. Although the prose was a bit wordy, and at times the message inflexible, it was still a solid read. 3.5 stars. Recommended.

Thank you to NetGalley, HQ Digital, and Carla Burgess for an ARC of 'The Five-Year Plan' in exchange for an honest and voluntary review.

I was so excited to receive this ARC through Netgalley. I wanted a lighter read in preparation for Crescent City and this was perfect. A light romance. Not a new favorite author or anything to be honest but it was light and had an interesting premise.
I enjoyed Aiden's love for wildlife and conservation and Orla's drive towards her career and goals. Of course there was the frustrating back and forth that all romances have where one party doesn't just out and talk about their thoughts or feelings pertaining to the relationship. I feel like so much could get accomplished if these people were just open and truthful with each other but hey, it's a story and wouldn't be half as long if it didn't have all that.
Oh and there were a lot of exclamation marks which made me feel like everyone was yelling at me all the time :/

I enjoyed the character development orla and aiden were good together. I knew the characters and the epilogue was great! It was a slow start but after the first 20% of the novel, it went really fast, I read the rest in a sitting. At times Orla was slightly annoying, but Aiden and the rest of the book made up for the slight annoyance. I really liked the banter between Aiden and Orla, and the passion between them was written really well. Overall, fun and quick read, that was well written!

I didn't enjoy this one. I thought the premise was a good one and was really enjoying the first chapter. Then, I get to chapter two and it is the backstory of the characters' relationship. I get to chapter three and the same thing, a recap. I understand that the author needs to establish a connection between the characters for the reader so that they become invested in them. I thought it would have been a lot better if the author had done a brief summary of this versus several chapters. I found it hard to get back into the story after reading so much of the backstory of the characters.

Orla trying hard to denied her own feelings while Aiden are transparent about what he feels but sometimes both of them are playing push and pull game lol They had their own goals and gosh they are so different from each other. Orla pretty stubborn while Aiden kinda pushy. He wanted her to leave everything behind tskkkk

Thank you Netgalley, publisher and author for this ARC! I enjoyed reading The Five-Year Plan!

#TheFiveYearPlan#NetGalley

⭐⭐⭐

Delightful! Orla and Aiden have an exciting romance in their 20s. They are on different paths and so they break up. Five years later he invited her to his gallery opening and they begin to get to know each other again.

The story is half told in flashback, and then jumps back to the present. I liked how their relationship develops initially, becoming friends first and moving on from that. I found Orla's constant damsel in distress routine to be a little lazy (once is fine, 3 times is a bit much). The conversation between the 2 MCs was mostly natural and funny.

This is a fun light read for long quarantine days!

This was a very entertaining tale showing how opposites attract and how sometimes, regardless of how determined we are, love just cannot be avoided. Sometimes destiny prevails, if it's meant to be, it's meant to be!!! I really enjoyed this love story. Orla had a plan and at all costs she was going to move to London, get her dream job and climb her way up to the top of the ladder. Aiden is her polar opposite. He wants to take photographs and couldn't care less about where he lives or what he earns. They are nothing alike at all which makes for very entertaining reading when their paths collide and a relationship ensues. This is a great piece of chick lit, and if that's your preferred genre you won't be disappointed.

I went into this book thinking it was going to be great! . It only took a couple of chapters before I was intrigued by this second chance romance story! This is one of my favorite tropes but it can be very difficult for authors to achieve that spark or attraction that was once there before. Aiden was charming from the start while Orla was a little harder to love. But she kept her walls up for good reasons. She was constantly trying to keep her distance and remind herself why she didn’t deserve this happy relationship. Though I thought the couple had chemistry and a little spark, I can only take so much self loathing. The girl needs to give herself a break it was exhausting.

Thank you to NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

3.5 stars

I went into this book blind. It only took a couple of chapters before I was intrigued by this second chance at love story. Aiden was charming from the start while Orla was a little harder to love. She was constantly trying to keep her distance and talk herself out of her own happiness that it got a little tiresome. However, the author did a pretty good job in presenting Orla's mindset and I did see why she was working so hard to protect her feelings. Aiden saw right through her each and every step of the way and the it became cute how he knew what Orla needed even before she knew herself.

3.5 stars

Thanks to Netgalley and the Publisher for sending me an ARC in exchange of my honest opinion.

The Five Year plan is an adult fiction though I think it can be safely labelled as YA,I think it mostly falls under second chance romance and a little bit under friends with benefits troupe.This is my first read from the author and while it isn't smashing I found that it fairly kept my interest to the very end, in all honesty I do not dig friends with benefits idea which is why I felt annoyed at times.

The first chapter immediately catches your attention and I think its a very wise choice for the author to start the plot line this way, Orla represents every girl with a burning desire to set her future in stone while Aiden is the personification of "live in the minute".While I really enjoyed Aiden's character arc and the author's choice of profession for him as a wild-life photographer,I couldn't help but feel frustrated as he came off entitled and selfish at places.However the story is set to take place as before and after in a span of five years which kind of excuses the way the characters act when they were younger, Orla on the other hand is portrayed as strong career oriented women with realistic expectations and practicality but her inner voice dialogues contradicts the authors portrayal which kind of confuses the reader,I should also add that the plot gets really slow halfway through the book as the character's behaviors get redundant but the last few chapters will make you forgive this shift in pace.

Overall it is a story about finding you way through the life and taking a leap of faith whenever la chance or rather a second chance knocks your door,I am surprised that I enjoyed the second chance romance more than I thought I would.It is a decent story set in London and Ireland if you want to pick it up for a quick travel read or a summer romance read.

It was an okay read.
I really can't say much about this book, not something overly positive or overly negative.
It was simply okay. Some parts more interesting than others. At some point it lost my attention but it was pretty light and fun enough read to get me through.

I thought this would be a cute storyline, I was right, but it didn’t live up to my expectations. I liked the characters, although a little selfish.

Thank you NetGalley for my complimentary copy in return for my honest review.

I have read this author before and enjoyed myself immensely, so when I had a chance at an ARC for this book I jumped at it. Sadly, it didn't grab me the way the other two did.

The author seems to delight in starting the book in Present day to build suspense: lovers torn apart! Forced to face each other after years apart, what will happen next?! The build-up! The tension!

Cut to the past.

Okay, sure. I get it. You want to grab the reader's attention straight away. However, repeatedly doing this begins to annoy the reader. I find it a lazy way to capture the reader's attention, and a manipulative way of getting invested in the characters.

But, let's move on. So then we're five years in the past, to when Orla and Aiden first meet. Okay, fine. You want to give the reader some background on what caused these two to get to the big face-to-face from the beginning of the story. Unfortunately, in this story the author tried to go for a slow build to bring the two characters together, and then their breaking point.

Honey, no. I found myself growing annoyed the longer it took to get back to Present day. Chapter after chapter, page after page. I was tempted to jump ahead, but managed to avoid that...barely. This also affected the pacing of the story for me. I felt mired in the past for ages, and then when they meet up again things felt rushed to get to the Happily Ever After. A straight half and half of the book might have worked better.

Orla was an okay character. Kudos to her for sticking to her plans and not chasing after a man at the detriment of her career, aspirations, five-year plan. However, I didn't buy that a woman that driven wouldn't have thought past her five-year plan. People I know who are that focussed on success usually have five-, ten-, twenty-, etc. plans. In that respect, Orla was incredibly short-sighted.

Aiden was also a fairly decent character. I did have a problem with his hostility towards Orla at times, particularly when he wasn't open with his thoughts. He dropped a few comments that might have indicated that he was giving up his wandering ways, and then he expected her to figure out what he was trying to say? She's not a mind-reader, mate. A solid relationship is built on communication, not pouting when the woman you love beats around the bush exactly as you are doing!

And I could have done with his talk of other women. I couldn't tell if he was saying that tried other relationships and nothing compared to Orla, or if he was saying that he'd missed her so much he had to try to screw her out of his thoughts. (Personally, I prefer when a couple aren't with others during their separation, or when the numbers are small.) Can't recall if Orla had relationships during the separation, and that's another pet peeve of mine. I do not like when the female character is all but re-virginized during the separation. We need to stop playing into the "boys will be boys" toxic masculinity mindset.

Still, this book was well written with characters and dialogue, description and emotions. I will definitely be looking out for more from this author in future.

I really enjoyed the flash back past see of this book, but the present day story I really didn’t like at all, by the end both the lead characters I seemed to really dislike them both. The pacing was a bit off and because of these things just felt disappointed by the end. Could have been so much better

Thanks to netgalley and the publisher for a free copy for an honest opinion

Thank you to Netgalley and HQ Digital for sharing and ARC in exchange of a fair review.

Orla is a trainee reporter doing her first independent interview for her newspaper when she meets Adrien, a wildlife photographer who is currently staking out otters. They become fast friends and then more. But neither of them started out wanting a relationship and have firm plans for the immediate future. Adrien goes away and both their lives carry on until five years later when they meet again.

This is one of those books with flashbacks but kind of with a difference. We start out in present day when they meet again but after getting briefly acquainted with our characters we are flung back in time five years to when they met. The middle of the book is the flashback and there's none of the back and forth I've seen in many novels. I'm not opposed to this sort of format but I'm not quite sure it worked for me.

For my part, I liked the parts from the present more than from the past. The flashback gets kind of humdrum after a while. I think the problem is the middle goes on too long. I'd have liked to have more focus on the present and keep the early story a lot shorter.

Anyway, that didn't happen in this case and the story if okay but I think could have been better. One other thing is that I don't get so much a sense of character development in this book. They have changed in some ways but I don't feel like the reader has gone along for the journey because essentially that part has been skipped. Still, there's a bit of a sweet romance underneath it all and you do feel a bit of happiness when things are going well for them.

Overall, I give this 2,5 stars.

I really, really wanted to like this more than I did - partly because it has such a promising start. The opening when Orla and Aiden meet again at his exhibition really grabbed me and hooked me in. But then it jumped back five years to their first meeting and stayed there for an awful lot longer than I was expecting. I wasn't so interested in what happened back then, I wanted to know what happened next and it took a long time to get back to that. And while we were in the past section, I found that I didn't like either of the characters as much as I had at the start.

When we finally got back to the present, Orla was a bit more passive than I was hoping that she would be and I felt like I never really got a sense of who she is - even though the story is told from her point of view. Thinking back at the end, I couldn't name a hobby, or an interest or a band she liked. I'm not even sure what it is about journalism that she liked - her plan is just explained as being to get a job at a national paper. And because you're in Orla's head, you never really get to know Aiden except through her eyes - and even through her eyes he has a tendency to seem self-centred and manipulative. I never really understood why they got on together so well or why she'd been so hung up on him for so long or what it was about her that Aiden liked so much, other than her ability to sit in a tent with him and watch otters.

I love a second chance romance, and I thought this had a lot of potential to recapture some of the things I loved about late 90s-early 00s "chick lit" - and which are seem to be so hard to find at the moment. But in the end it didn't quite do what I wanted it to do - and I'm not sure it's entirely because I was hoping for it to be something it wasn't.

The Five-Year Plan may not have been entirely for me, but it may well scratch an itch for some of you out there. And in these difficult times (you know what I'm talking about), it has the advantage of not having any peril, or illness in it (beyond a sprained ankle) and that's definitely a plus.

🗺

2.5 stars

*Thank you Netgalley and the Publisher for providing me with an early copy of this book for review, all opinions are my own*

The book takes place in two stages, it starts in the present with the reunion of the couple and then goes back 5 years in the past to tell us what happened to them.
I really liked the flashback chapters, incredible as it may seem, because normally I don't like it, but their story getting to know each other and falling in love was very beautiful.
But then when we got back to the present I started to hate things, not the book itself but the male character, he was extremely annoying and all the actions and words he said in the last part of the book make me want to punch him in the face and tell him to shut up, the female character gets so boring that it got on my nerves too.
In other words, it went from a book I was really enjoying reading for a book that irritated me deeply because of the characters.

A sweet and entertaining story that made smile and root for the characters.
I liked the style of writing, the plot that flows and the well thought characters.
I look forward to reading other books by this author.
Recommended.
Many thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for this ARC, all opinions are mine.