Cover Image: Float Plan

Float Plan

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Member Reviews

I’m not sure how I feel about this one still. I liked it while I was reading it but I found it very forgettable. I did really like the characters and the story line.

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Thank you so much NetGalley for the arc!

This was a really interesting read. Not your normal happy go romance! I have never ever read a book that takes place on a sail boat and I found that to be really intriguing! Queenie was a delight! But if we could stop doing a third act break up that would be great.... especially since there was literally only 40 pages left...

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This was a great summer read! Idk why it took me so long to get to this one. It did not disappoint! This book filled me with such emotions! I felt like I was right alongside Anna experiencing everything with her! That is great writing!

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This was a cute quick and fun read that made my trip memorable! Trish Doller will definitely be on my go to list from now on! Thank you NetGalley for the read!

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Anna and Ben were to sail off in his boat and get married in a far away land. Anna was a fun-loving girl and Ben suffered from mental illness. When Ben makes it so that they cannot go through with their plans, Anna decides to take the route alone using the chart that Ben mapped out. Along the way, Anna learns about herself, and what it takes to heal, as well as finding out who one truly is. A great read with a strong female protagonist. This story is about goals, love, healing, and finding home again. Thank you to Ms. Doller, St. Martin's Press, and NetGalley, for the opportunity to read and review this book.

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I’ve found the books I’ve bought because of rave reviews from bloggers (even though they haven’t been wildly popular) are the best books for me to read. I get why they had the amazing reviews. This was one of those books. People loved it and so did I.

This is very much a book centred upon grief and the never ending feel it has to it. You don’t want to ‘get over’ your loss but you also wonder if you will ever not feel the weight of it around you with no way of knowing if you want it gone because does that mean you don’t miss the person you lost anymore? Anna was very much stuck so her impulsive decision to go on the sailing trip she was meant to be on her with her fiancé was a little reckless. What a story it made though! I am ready to buy a boat and go sailing around the Caribbean and I live miles away from it and can’t drive a car let alone sail a boat.

Trish Doller has always been amazing at writing complex characters and creating a story you feel fully immersed in and that’s no different here. I felt like I was sailing with Anna and Keane and I adored it. I am so glad she moved to writing adult books because her YA novels are some of my absolute favourites and so I’m glad I now get to accumulate even more favourite books.

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A suicide note, a boat, a struggle to survive for those left behind, a promise and a plan to sail.

Can love be found a second time around when life throws you a curveball?

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I picked this book up expecting it to be an easy breezy romance, but it isn't necessarily that. It does have romance in it but it is mainly about grief and dealing with it while letting go of the past.

Anna is a 25 year old waitress whose fiancé recently passed away by suicide and she is still reeling from that loss. To move on with her life, she decides to follow his sailing adventure plan that he had chalked down for the two of them and sets sail to the Caribbean islands. But on her first stop, she realises that she can't do this alone, and help arrives in the form of a very handsome Keane Sullivan.

I really enjoyed the travel aspect of the book and loved visiting each place with these guys. Keane was really sweet, supportive, and understanding, while also dealing with demons of his own. I also enjoyed the character arc that we saw with Anna.

My qualm is with the book being sold to me as a romance when I didn't get any romance till the halfway point. And it took even longer for something to happen between them after that.
Also, I'm sorry but, I couldn't buy the bit of romance that I eventually got.

I would love to read more from this author though because I did enjoy her writing style.

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Truthfully, I DNF'd this book the first time I dove into it, mostly because my head wasn't in the right space--but I'm really glad I came back to it, as this was a delightful read. It's a beautifully written story about dealing with grief and was much more serious than romances typically get, with some lighthearted scenes that balance it all very nicely. The relationship and romance between Anna and Keane felt believable and heartwarming, and it's overall quite a good story about growth, adventure, and learning to embrace a new future after loss.

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Thought this book would start out heavy with the grief and then move on to some lightness and hope and romance. But the heavy feeling kept up for much longer in the story, and that wasn't really what I was looking for in this tale - I was hoping for some lightness and feelings and a renewed surge to live (especially based on that uplifting cover), but it turned out to be rather a downer of a story feeling-wise

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A good contemporary romance of starting over in life. Anna’s journey of finding herself and starting a new life is inspiring and exciting. There are many stages of grief shown throughout this story and with a romantic addition that gives a happy ending is always nice.

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I voluntarily agreed to read and honestly review this book.
This was a great read about trying to come to terms with Life after a suicide. Our heroine, Anna, tries to get back on even ground by taking a solo boat trip. She meets the hero, Keane, and eventually falls in love with him. Her journey isn’t easy nor smooth. But eventually she gets to where she needs to be, and finally gets her HEA.

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What a beautiful story of grief and finding love again! Float Plan by Trish Doller is a contemporary romance bordering on women’s fiction about a young woman’s journey across the Caribbean Sea after her fiancé’s death. Anna has spent the last year in a fog, living but not. Then one morning she receives a reminder on her phone about a trip she’d planned with her late fiancé in his sailboat. Quitting her job and packing all of her belongings, Anna sets sail on her own only to find that she needs another hand on deck as she really didn’t know much about how to sail. She hires Keane, a professional sailor battling demons of his own, to help her reach Puerto Rico. Together they begin a new adventure.

I really enjoyed this story. Anna is beautifully written. Her grief and anger are right on the surface, and she struggles to cope. However out on the boat, she feels closer to Ben than she has in a year which has a healing quality all of its own. After a year of questions, Anna allows herself to be happy and live again. Keane is fantastic. I loved him from the moment he was introduced. He has his own demons, but he is learning to cope and move forward with his own life as well. When he first encounters Anna, he sees a kindred soul, someone who is hurting and needs a lifeline. He is that.

I have to admit, I was not expecting the heavy emotional reading in this. I was thinking a cute romcom or a sweet contemporary romance. While it has those elements, it really tugged at my heartstrings and caused my eyes to leak. Trigger Warnings; Suicide (off page), depression, grief & loss

I listened to an audiobook copy of this book. Sarah Naughton narrates, and I got lost in her storytelling. She is AMAZING. I could listen to her for days and never be bored. In fact, I listened to this one in almost one sitting. I will be looking for audiobooks she narrates in the future.

Overall, I really enjoyed Float Plan. It is a full circle story. Anna and Keane are an easy couple to root for. Anna’s story and growth throughout is applicable to every day life, and I’m sure will touch many hearts. If you are a fan of women’s fiction or contemporary romance, I highly recommend it.

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It really was a book I could not put down, I stayed up until 2am on a workday in order to finish this. I loved it. The grief, the new beginnings, the Caribbean, the sailing... and I am not interested in sailing at all. It was just a lovely read that's all. Sad but also happy and uplifting.

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For someone who grew up sailing with kids who sailed, I enjoyed the sailings stuff (there was a lot) but also enjoyed the cute characters and second chance story.

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Loved this. It is my dream to live on a boat for months on end and I gobbled this up in one sitting. I need more. MORE!!!!

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An excellent and heart-warming story about learning from loss and making a new life out of the rubble.

Anna and Keane's romance is super sweet. And I loved all the island settings in the book. I'm just a little bit jealous of the characters' trip, in fact. 🥰 🛥

Sadly, there was not infrequent use of profanity throughout the tale. And occasionally it was a bit crude and/or vulgar. For this reason, I am awarding 4 stars ⭐️ ⭐️⭐️⭐️ instead of 5. Otherwise, I highly recommend this endearing story.

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While this was a compassionate tale of love and sailing, I wasn't a huge fan of the characters. However, I did enjoy the setting and all of the places that Anna visited on her trip. Kind of predictable. I wanted it to dive more into Anna as a character and what makes her tick.

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Instead of showing up for Thanksgiving dinner, Anna makes a run through the grocery store for limes and a flashlight, dried beans and rice, playing cards and boxed milk: shipboard essentials for going away to sea for “awhile.” Ten months into her healing from the loss of her fiance by suicide, Anna is eloping from her life to take the trip of a lifetime through the Caribbean in the boat Ben restored, on the trip they had planned to take together. he may not have a fully fleshed out float plan, just a final destination of Trinidad, to a beach where they’d planned to marry, and a map of ports of call between Fort Lauderdale and the Bahamas. She quickly realizes her limitations and hires on the more seasoned sailor Keane to help her navigate the islands. They form a compelling partnership as Anna learns to navigate both the sailboat and her grief. Along they way, they pick up a stray dog, Keane’s brother joins them for a while, they spent Christmas and New Years in the Bahamas.

Anna’s journey and resiliency are raw and imperfect, the characterizations nuanced, and the author doesn’t shy award from tough topics–Ben’s goodbye letter to Anna prefaces the story; Keane, disabled from an accident, has his own doubts and demons to overcome but is a decent and good man, sensitive, kind, supportive, and honest. Details like Anna’s mother’s German-accented English, the dolphins (famed for assisting humans in times of need) that accompany Anna out of the harbor at the start of her journey, and the geography of the Florida coastline are vivid. Descriptions of the design, vibe, food, people and culture of the various islands Anna and Keane visit bring the novel to life. The writing is masterful; sentences like “his mouth is bracketed by disapproval” convey emotion without overstating. Keane often speaks in proverbs, telling Anna the things she needs to hear to keep going: sometimes you have to throw out the map; what we need at present is not to let fear rule the day. At some point, Anna realizes that Keane is the person Ben was trying to be: not just a man in motion, but a man with direction. I don’t know that I’d call this a slow burn book, but the pacing is perfect for the romantic element.

Doller touches on faith lightly, in several conversations about God. Keane is Irish Catholic and finds a church when their shore leave coincides with Sundays. and at one point, Anna wonders if having faith would have saved Ben; all we know is struggled with depression for a long time.

I read this over a year ago, and didn’t review it at the time; a year and half later, it’s sticking with me and I even have quoted it: “the stages of grief are not linear. They are random and unpredictable, folding back on themselves until you begin mourning all over again.” So true, so evocative. Keane tells Anna he understands loss and reassures her that eventually, “You’ll start building a new house beside the ruins of the old.”

Anna’s sister Rachel and niece Maisie are referenced several times; read the The Suite Spot for Rachel’s story, and to get a glimpse of Anna and Keane and Queenie and their happiness post-Float Plan.

I received a free advance reader’s review copy of #FloatPlan from #NetGalley.

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I just loved this story . I loved the whole thing about the book, I hear they have a book two coming out and I cannot wait.

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