The Backup Plan by Jill Shalvis – a Review

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Description:
When Alice receives a call about an unexpected windfall, she’s stunned to learn the gift is a falling-apart-at-the-seams old Wild West B&B she once considered home–and she’s inherited it along with two strangers. Except they weren’t always strangers. Once upon a time, they were friends. One is her ex-BFF Lauren. The other is Knox, the only guy to ever break her heart, all while never even knowing she existed.

It turns out their lives are unknowingly entangled because they once separately helped the same woman without expecting anything in return. Years later, Alice, Lauren, and Knox are broken in their own way, with their own history–and secrets– causing them to start out on the wrong foot with each other. But according to the will, they must renovate and be partners in the inn for one year or else lose their inheritance.

Stuck together, they make a list of rules to keep the peace–rules that end up doing the opposite, but by some miracle they find what they didn’t even know they were looking for–acceptance, true friendship, and in a case (or two!), true love.

Review:

The Backup Plan by Jill Shalvis is the 3^rd book in her Sunrise Cove series. Though this is a continuation of the Sunrise Cove series, all three of these books read as standalones. The main characters in The Backup Plan are Alice, Lauren and Knox. All three of them are thrown together, when they learn that each of them inherited 1/3 share of the Wild West Inn from Eleanor, who recently passed away.    The three of them had ties to Eleanor, with Lauren and Alice having been best friends in their teenage years, but a tragedy broke up their friendship.  Knox, as a teen, had helped his mother working at the Inn.  They agree to spend a month together to fix up the inn, and decide to either sell or have a firm run the inn for them. 

Memories of the past, continues to keep Lauren and Alice at a distance, though each still very much care about each other. When tragedy struck, with the loss of Alice’s brother, she ran away, leaving Lauren in Sunrise Cove, never coming back. Alice knew Knox in high school, and had a secret crush on him.  Their complicated pasts make things difficult at first, especially when they read the letters written by Eleanor that helps them deal with the issues, and hopefully allowing them to grieve and forgive. 

A slow build romance between Alice and Knox begins, with wonderful chemistry that sizzles.   Slowly, Alice and Lauren find a way to open up old wounds, and realize their friendship was worth saving.  I really loved all three of them, as they were great characters, with lots of banter between them.  I also loved Knox’s dog, Pickle; who was a wonderful addition. It was also fun to watch Lauren slowly open up to a possible relationship with Ben.

What follows is an excellent, heartwarming story revolving around friendship, family, secrets, love and forgiveness. The Backup Plan was so very well written by Jill Shalvis. It had a bit of everything, including three wonderful characters, emotional, romance, banter, and all three moving forward with friendship and true love.  I recommend you read The Backup Plan, as you can never go wrong reading anything by Jill Shalvis.

Reviewed by Barb

Copy provided by Publisher