Reviewed by Valerie

TITLE:  Off Plan

AUTHOR:  May Archer

SERIES:  Whispering Key

PUBLISHER:  Self-Pubished

LENGTH:  370 pages

RELEASE DATE:  April 29, 2020

BLURB:

I came to Whispering Key for a job. That was all. To show the world Mason Bloom could be more than a small-town doctor living a medium-sized life.

Private doctor on a swanky island with a posh resort? Check.

But from the moment I set foot on this island, nothing went according to plan.

I didn’t expect to find the resort falling apart.
I didn’t expect the people here to be so charming and crazy and welcoming and real.
I didn’t expect legends about shipwrecks and buried treasure.
And I definitely didn’t expect Fenn Reardon, the island’s incredibly attractive, incredibly infuriating, incredibly male resident tour guide, to become the one person I can’t live without.

Thirty-five’s a bit late for me to realize I’m not straight, though, right? And I have big dreams that won’t fit on Whispering Key, anyway—dreams that do not include tying myself to a tiny island stuck in the past or to a man who refuses to think about the future.

My head’s telling me I have to leave Whispering Key…
My heart’s telling me there might be treasure on this island after all.

REVIEW:

Fenn and Mason meet at the airport and it’s hate at first sight. The animosity rolls off these two in waves like heat off of sidewalk. Before even knowing who the other is, they’re having an uproarious argument and calling each other Serial Killer Guy and Loafers McGee because of assumptions based on appearances. It’s funny how they hate each other so much but no one sent that memo to their bodies who betray them repeatedly. This is quite a problem for Mason because Hello! He’s straight. (Supposedly) 

After being left by his fiancé, Victoria, for another man a few months earlier, Mason leaves New York for a new job in Florida. He’s to be a private practice doctor for the guests at a five-star resort on Whispering Key, a luxurious island off the coast of Sarasota. (Or so he thought.) Mason is ready for change, ready to live his life for himself, fearlessly, and return to the man he was before Victoria’s status-obsessed influence.  

Fenn, meanwhile, has an iron-clad (he thought) policy regarding straight men: 

I had exactly one life rule, though. One and only. I didn’t do straight guys. Ever. And I don’t just mean I didn’t fuck around with them, because duh. I mean, I didn’t pine for them. I didn’t fantasize about them. I didn’t even let myself look at them too closely, since the looking always lead to fantasizing and then to the pining. 

Fenn learned this the hard way five years prior when involvement with a straight guy led to the worst mistake of his life and he lost the guy, lost his career, and got beat up. That led to him living on Whispering Key with his only real family – his uncle Rafe and his three male cousins – working for the family business as a tour boat captain and errand runner. It’s in this capacity that Fenn is relegated to picking up Mason, the new island doctor, at the Sarasota airport, which brings us back to the arguing. Eventually, the nastiness being spewed by both dies down to a dull roar of snark, with bits of attraction poking through. Again, how inconvenient for Mason. He is appalled that he could be attracted to someone wearing cheap plastic flip-flops!! (Time to work harder on that status obsession.) 

The one characteristic of this book that bothered me was the overuse of italicized words. Used correctly, italics emphasize important words, but their overuse lessens the impact and leads to distraction and annoyance. I was both distracted and annoyed, although I got used to it after a while. 

I wouldn’t say I couldn’t put Off Plan down, but I did miss Fenn and Mason when I was doing other things. They are both very likable characters. This is a very funny book, rife with banter. Fenn and Mason even banter with themselves in their internal dialogue – one of my favorite aspects of the book. 

I like the setting of Whispering Key. It’s barefoot (in)elegance at its best. Archer has successfully created a world with a perfect relaxed and run-down vibe. I can envision myself walking down one of the dilapidated and overgrown streets, sun beating down, the island’s one and only eatery in the distance. The plot is a bit contrived, but it doesn’t matter because Archer has served up a very entertaining read.  

The secondary characters strongly enhance the book. There must be at least a dozen townspeople who figure into the small-town life on the island. Then there’s Fenn’s family: Uncle Rafe, and cousins Gage, Rafe Junior, and Beale. Beale, my favorite, is gay so I’m looking forward to seeing his goofy mug as the protagonist in his own future novel. And I wonder if Mason’s BFF Toby might figure into the series, somehow. 

I recommend Off Plan and hope you enjoy it as much as I did. 

Note: Mason’s brother Micah is one of the main characters in Archer’s The Secret, part of her Love in O’Leary series. 

RATING:

BUY LINKS: 

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