Review: The Backup Plan

The Backup Plan by Jill Shalvis
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I received this book for free, this does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review 

And now she, a woman who owned little but the big, fat chip on her shoulder, also owned one-third of the Last Chance Inn and all its surrounding property. 

The Back-up Plan was a story of when you can't run from your past anymore and have to face old hurts. Alice grew-up on the Wild West Last Chance Inn with her father, brother Will, and pseudo-grandmother. She fixed cars with her father and brother, had a bestfriend in her brother's girlfriend Lauren, and was crushing hard on the Inn's help Knox. When her brother crashes his car, one Alice had just fixed the brakes on, and dies, she can't take the pain and leaves the ranch and all her relationships behind the first chance she gets. Four years later, she's called back when Eleanor (pseudo-gram) dies and she's listed as an inheritor of the ranch, along with two other people she never wanted to face again. 

“I don’t want to be alone in the end.” The look in her eyes, the soft, mesmerizing mix of vulnerability, pain, and stubbornness got him right in the heart. 

“So change the ending of your story.” 

This had the Shalvis charm along with some deeper emotional hurts, with the death of her brother and Knox's emotional issues stemming from having an alcoholic mother, and Lauren having a town keeping her in the grieving “widow” role. You'll get povs from all three characters and a mini-bonus romance between Lauren and a new person to town. The forced proximity plot was a romance genre special with all having to meet will requirements that keep them from being able to leave right away and not sell the ranch immediately. This forces Alice to have to sit in her grief and discomfort and have those hard conversations with Knox and Lauren. The romance had some sparking moments but the fixing the relationship between Alice and Lauren had more emotional depth moments to me. With all three having character work to do individually and together, there wasn't a lot of time to focus down deep into one aspect but if you're looking for a Shalvis special of charm, funny, and some heat, this wouldn't be a bad beach read pick-up with it's old hurts, secrets, and finding a way back to each other and an epilogue that delivers on some happy favorite elements.

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