This book was so sweet, but way too short! I loved how dynamic the characters were. I also have never read a book that set place on a sailboat, and I loved learning more about sailing and nautical adventures. It was the perfect romance to read when I was stuck inside during a snowstorm. 4/5!

Thank you NetGalley, Trish Doller and St. Martin's Press for the ARC of Float Plan. This is my personal review.
Anna is dealing with the suicide of her fiancé Ben. On the day she was to begin a sailing journey with her fiancé she decides it will help her deal with her grief she embarks on the trip alone. Her friends and family try to talk her out of going but she knows she must do this for herself.
The trip is tougher than she thought doing it alone, so she hires someone to go with her.
Keane is a professional sailor and can help her on this journey.
As the journey goes on Keane and Anna find that there is a life out there for each of them and being together is what they both need.
The story is full of a many emotions and thoughts and it is a way to see that there are second chances in life and to grab hold when they come along.

Once I started this lovely book, I could not put it down. What a wonderful escape on a dreary winter day in the midst of a pandemic. I knew nothing about sailing, but Trish Doller made me feel as if I was right there in the boat. Great character development, very likable characters, good pacing and very well written. I look forward to recommending this title to our library patrons-thanks for the opportunity to read it.

Float Plan is the first book of Trish Doller's I have had the pleasure of reading. And I do mean pleasure! This book is everything I want in a contemporary romance.

Anna's search for happiness is full of highs and lows, like the tides. There is something so fitting about a journey of self-discovery and the stages of grief, taking place on a boat. Keane is everything you want in a love interest and while I spent a lot of time anxiously awaiting the inevitable I also didn't find myself becoming impatient. Which is usually my way!

There are SO many wonderful moments and lines within Float Plan. Seriously I don't think I have ever highlighted a book more. It all felt so wonderous and yet so real. I never found myself thinking "that's so beyond reality" I wanted to be on that boat and at the same time I didn't. My heart broke for Anna again and again but it never lasted too long!

I loved how Doller wrote about grief and how she handled Keane's story. It was all just enough of everything to make the perfect combination of things for me!

If you loved books like Evvie Drake Starts Over and Beach Read, definitely put this one on your list!

Thank you to the publisher and Netgalley for a copy in exchange for an honest review!

TW - This book deals with suicide, from the first page and a near-drowning.

“I didn’t remind him that sometimes the light we see is left over from dead stars. It couldn’t be mine if it was already gone.”

Five word review: Heartbreaking. Funny. Sweet. Hopeful. Inspirational.

Full review: Oh what a special book! I was nervous when I first started Float Plan because the author, Trish Doller, begins this book with a trigger warning that the story includes mentions of self harm and suicide. But she dealt with those serious, heavy topics in delicate ways. This book also focuses a lot on grieving but Doller interlaces that with enough hope and humor that the story doesn’t feel too heavy.

I loved how grieving, healing and starting over were intertwined. The main character, Anna, grieved on her own timeline, and it wasn’t a linear journey. And I think that’s an important message. Grief isn’t linear. You can ping around those five stages of grief like you’re in a pin ball machine.

And if you’re at all grieving the loss of normal life and traveling, you’ll want to read this book. It was atmospheric- with imagery of exotic settings and a cast of local characters, reading this story felt like a virtual vacation. Some of my favorite images include: starry nights and constellations, whales playing alongside the boat, exploring pirate hideouts, and jumping off a cliff and into the ocean. I loved feeling like I was traveling with Anna and Keane on the boat, even when it made me feel sympathetically seasick.

And I loved Anna and Keane! Anna is funny (“You probably recognize me by my ass”), strong, brave and inspirational. Her character growth was amazing- she went from making choices blinded by grief to making intentional choices to take back control of her life.

Keane is steady, caring, selfless, mature and patient. He helps Anna with her own grief while struggling with his own loss. And he has an Irish accent. (*swoon!*) Their friendship was kind, sweet and patient. And they both put each other first. They were a great team.

4 out of 5 ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Mark your calendars! Because Float Plan comes out March 2nd and you’ll definitely want to read this one. Thank you, NetGalley for giving me the opportunity to read this one early in exchange for an honest review.

"One of the things I've learned is that suicide doesn't break a person's heart just once."

"Kind is one of the easiest things to be."

Anna is paralyzed with grief after her fiancé commits suicide. Ten months after his tragic death, Anna gets an alert on her phone that the sailing trip she and Ben planned to take would be starting that day. Impulsively, she decides to take the trip as a way to honor Ben and to try to move forward.

Once on the open water, Anna realizes she's wholly unprepared and had often relied on Ben's experience. After a harrowing trip to get to the first port, Anna decides that hiring an experienced crew would be the wise decision going forward. When Keane responds to Anna's ad, Anna is relieved and grateful that Keane's experience and friendly demeanor will accompany her on her journey.

Anna's sailing trip from Fort Lauderdale to Trinidad brings a lot more than a fun adventure and beautiful islands and we watch as Anna comes into her own and begins to develop a life after Ben.

This was a moving and emotional story but also a ton of fun and one that I couldn't put down. I loved the growth of Anna's character and her battle with her emotions and her grief. Doller did a tremendous job detailing the grief cycle without making the book too sad. It felt like Doller has had a close personal loss in the way she was so accurately able to verbalize the confusing and conflicting emotions of anger, hurt, sadness, and guilt.

Keane's character was really well developed and I loved his complex back story, kind soul, and persevering spirit. Not enough books have main characters with disabilities, and I appreciated that Doller highlighted some of the challenges and discriminations Keane faced while also showing how fully able he was.

I thought this book was really sensitive to some difficult subject matters but still overall a really enjoyable and ultimately positive book. It felt well researched (though admittedly I don't have much experience sailing and haven't been to many of the specific destinations discussed) and the visuals Doller created of the different islands was really transportive. I was also really drawn to how well and authentically Doller developed the relationships and camaraderie amongst the other travelers that Keane and Anna encountered.

This is definitely a book I recommend if you're looking for a sweet romance with some substance and/or you love to travel.

Thank you to St. Martin's Griffin and NetGalley for a copy of this novel.

Thanks NeGalley, author Trish Doller, and St. Martin's Griffin for giving me a free E-book arc of this book in exchange for an honest review. All thoughts and opinions are my own.
5 stars
Trigger warnings: Death of a loved one by suicide, discovery of loved one who's death was a result of suicide (including the note and description of the death), and drinking.
This was an amazing heartfelt story of a grieving, healing, self discovery, and a new love. Anna is grieving the loss of her fiancé and in order to honor the plan they made, she decides to set sail on their boat to all the different places they wanted to visit. While in port, Anna meets Keane, who is a man living with a prosthetic leg as well as being unemployed. She decides he is the man to help her learn to sail. So they set off on the adventure they will change both of their lives. Can the open waters heal and create a new wave of love for two incomplete people?
I really believe the author handled the sensitive topic of suicide very well. There were not overly dramatics by Anna, but instead real conversations about those that loss loved ones by suicide. I loved to see Anna really going through the process of grief and had great respect for Keane. He was willing to take things slow with Anna. While his feelings were more than friendship, he was willing to be patient and accept anything Anna was willing to give. He was not without his own struggles with grief and loss, but he was able to help Anna understand how the death of her fiancé was not her fault. Their relationship was well developed. It had great pacing and a vulnbility within it on both sides that had me smiling when they had their first kiss. Overall, I really enjoyed this book and highly recommend it to those who love traveling romances.

I know nothing about sailing, but this book thought me some things and in addition there was a cute love story!!

Float Plan is a story about Anna losing her fiancé Ben of about two years to suicide. She was grieving for a good ten months when her phone calendar alarm reminded her of the big sailing trip she and Ben had planned to go on around Thanksgiving.
Leaving behind her “Hooters” type job, her German mom and estranged sister, (that think she should move on but not go crazy and leave with a Sailboat) she takes Bens chart book and sails off.

On the way she meets Keane and she hires him to help her sail. Over the days and weeks, they come together as friends

Great story about loss, sailing (and beautiful places in the Caribbean) and finding new love.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for this ebook arc in exchange for an honest review.

This is another cutesy romance title coming out in 2021 that I was excited about. Trish Doller did some real research or had first hand experience of sailing, which is admirable. I know nothing of sailing, which is why possibly this book was not entirely for me.

This follows our main character Anna, who has lost her fiancee to suicide. Trigger warnings for those that are affected by this. She is devastated. One of the things they were going to do together was go sailing to certain places together, so she decides in order to move on, she will go on this journey that he wanted to take. It was a great study of grief, I believe. She hires Keane to help her sail, when it's clear she can't go it alone. Keane is going through some struggles of his own and together they try to navigate new adventures.

I thought the romance was cute, and the study of grief was done very well. I didn't like the monotony of sailing. I think if that was more something I was into, I would have enjoyed it more. Overall, this was 3 star read. The romance was cute and the message was inspiring.

Wow; this book is so much more than I bargained for. It’s such a beautiful story of healing after love and loss. Anna finds herself through trials and tribulations while out at sea, with the help of her new friend Keane. This was the perfect slow burn and so real- in the best way!

Prior to starting Float Plan, I figured it was going to be a cutesy romance read about a second chance at love, but this book is so much more! It deals with grief and moving on from the loss of a loved one in such an authentic way and it is one of the best books I've read that deals with the subject matter of suicide.

Almost a year after losing her fiancé to suicide, Anna decides to embark on the Caribbean sailing trip they were going to take together. With not a lot of sailing knowledge, Anna decides she needs help to make this journey and at her first stop posts an ad for help. When Keane, a professional sailor who lost his leg, rescues her from an awkward situation, Anna takes him up on his offer to help make her sailing dream a reality.

With Anna and Keane both dealing with different levels of pain and grief that they need to overcome, they each become a shoulder for the other to lean on. In a matter of weeks they went from being complete strangers to trusting each other with emotions they were afraid to let others see. While this book is categorized as a romance, for me that wasn't the most important part of the book. Instead it was learning how to pick yourself back up when you face one of the toughest moments of your life and learn how to live again, even if it is in a different way than you or anyone else originally planned.

Thank you for the opportunity to review this new novel.

I usually go in blind in books but this time it didn’t go well because I didn't know about the suicide. It's a bit of a trigger for me and I was on the verge of putting it down.. I did continue after a while and I'm glad I did because the book is great.

I cried a lot for Anna and Ben but also cheered for Anna and Keane. Grief is a powerful feeling such as happiness. The author did a great job with all the feelings and it became a mixture of happiness and sadness.

This was such a cute uplifting story- really enjoyed watching her let go of her sadness and move forward!

Float Plan is the story of Anna, a young woman who has lost her fiance Ben to suicide. A little less than a year after his death, she embarks on a (very) ambitious sailing trip they had planned on taking together. Along the way, she meets Keane - a man who has the potential to help her in more ways than one. Overall, I really liked the book. The Caribbean imagery and the detail of the different islands and their characters was so heartwarming and wonderful. I really liked Anna and Keane as main characters. I did think it started off a bit abruptly with Anna undertaking this sailing journey along - with her not knowing an awful lot about sailing this seemed incredibly aggressive and foolhardy. I have never attempted a sailing trip like this but I'm guessing it isn't very realistic to think that she could have done what she did on her own. I also would have liked a little more back story into her relationship with Ben. I struggled with not knowing much about why she was truly in love with him and why his loss haunted her for so long.

This book is not as deep and sad as it originally sounded to me when I started it, but I'd definitely share a suicide trigger warning. Overall 4 stars and I'd definitely recommend, especially for readers like me who enjoy a good romance and love the Caribbean.

I was so surprised by how wonderful this book is. The start of the story with the loss of Ben is so much that it makes you wonder where could this possibly go, but Anna and her actual journey in adventure and in love are so wonderful. Keane is soft and swoony but strong and just what she needs. I will be adding this to my list of heart warming and page turning reads that i MUST press into everyone's hands. Thank you so much for letting me read and review

Wow! I couldn’t love this book more. I want to thank Netgalley for the ARC because it’s always great to read a book before it’s published but it’s awesome when you read one as great as this! Float Plan is the best love story and with the backdrop of sailing, it makes it perfect. I loved seeing Anna learn more about herself, coming to terms with Bens death and falling for Keane. I read this one fast but didn’t want it to end.

This book was ALL. THE. STARS. I absolutely loved it!
It is the perfect book for escapism. Between the sailing, the exotic settings, and the fact it is currently freezing cold outside with chance of snow and ice in the next few days, this book hits the spot and sweeps you off your feet giving you a heartwarming experience along the way!
I am always fascinated with sailing, but I become apprehensive of the thought of personally jumping on a sailboat in the middle of the ocean(especially alone!). Therefore, Anna taking this on solo impressed me and I loved living vicariously through her experience.

This book has the perfect formula for light and airy, but with teachable moments of where you witness one grow, get out of their comfort zone, heal from traumatic experiences, and face fears. I would highly recommend this heartfelt book to all of my friends!

***Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for allowing me an advanced copy of this book!

To call this addictive read a romance is to sell it short. It is so much more than that. While Anna grieves for her fiancé, we grieve with her, experiencing her feelings as though they were our own. Keene is grappling with his own loss, and together as they sail the warm Caribbean seas, they grow as individuals and as a couple. I recommend this book for anyone looking for a soulful sail to warmer seas.

AMAZING! I loved this book! It takes place on a sailboat, which seems like it would get boring, but it never does! Anna and Keane are amazing characters and I loved reading about them getting to know each other as they sailed and visited islands in the Caribbean. There is also a lot of growth for them both individually and together which really added to the story. HIGHLY recommend!

This was a great read! I have always wanted to go sailing, and I loved those details in the book. However, the friendship between Anna and Keane was a real joy to watch unfurl. The two have a way of helping each other work through so much! I look forward to reading more from the author.