Ten months after Anna Beck came home to find that her fiancé had taken his own life, she decides to take action. They had made plans. Ben had bought a sailboat and they were going to sail through the Caribbean together. Ben had it all charted out, all the stops, all the adventures. And then his depression overtook him, and he wasn’t there to take the trip. But Anna is still alive, and she needs to do something with her grief.
So on the day that Anna and Ben had been scheduled to leave, Anna throws some clothes in a bag and heads for the marina. She abandons her job waiting tables and takes a leap of faith onto the sailboat and sets sail on her own. Anna knows that she won’t be able to make the entire journey on her own, but just getting to the first port takes so much out of her that she puts up a sign saying she’s looking for an experienced crew to help her sail to Puerto Rico. And then she gets really drunk.
She wakes up on her sailboat the next morning with no memory of how she got there. She discovers an Irishman, Keane Sullivan, who had found her cried out and passed out in her dinghy and returned her to her boat. Then he slept on the deck, leaving her to wake up alone, confused and hung over. Anna is impressed by his kindness, and when she realizes that he was the one who answered her ad for experienced crew, she hires him immediately.
Keane, meanwhile, is haunted by ghosts of his own. He is an experienced sailor, having been on boats all his life. But his prosthetic leg has changed the way others look at him. They no longer call him and ask him to crew as they race. He no longer gets job offers to help on the big, expensive boats that he used to call home. He knows he can still do the work. He just needs a chance. Anna gives him a chance, understanding that his experience is worth far more than any disability he may be facing.
As Anna and Keane sail through the islands, stopping for supplies and adventures, catching flying fish out of the air and eating them raw, camping on a quiet beach, rescuing a lonely dog, and finding friends to celebrate the holidays with, they also find that they are working through their individual grief and coming together as friends, and maybe more.
Float Plan is YA author Trish Doller’s first novel for adults, and it’s a lovely slow journey through the denial, anger, bargaining, and depression to the acceptance that offers those who grieve a new start. The symbolism of the journey these characters take on the boat is the perfect metaphor for recovering from a life-altering experience, and this journey is just as powerful for the reader as it is for the characters.
I wasn’t expecting Float Plan to be the type of story it is. I was expecting a fun, fluffy romcom that started with a meet cute and went on through a series of wacky sailing adventures that finally brings the boy and the girl together in a Hollywood ending that’s all tied up in a big bow. Instead, what I got was the story of characters who feel as real as the people you see every day. There are big feelings, honest tears, and a friendship that builds slowly but seems inevitable, and you can’t help but cheer for Anna and for Keane as they laugh and move forward and throw the plans overboard to embrace a new life.
Float Plan is not the romance that’s like all the others. It’s just the story of two characters who find themselves in the right place at the right time to recover the best parts of themselves and move forward into a big life. It’s warm and uplifting and a beautiful story for anyone who is grieving a loss (and, frankly, I don’t know anyone who isn’t grieving something these days). So get yourself a sailboat and a plan for sailing the big, wide ocean. Or just buy this book and find a comfortable beach or hammock or sofa and set off on a journey that you won’t soon forget.
Egalleys for Float Plan were provided by St. Martin’s Press (Griffin) through NetGalley, with many thanks.
