Reviewed by Larissa
TITLE: Off Plan
SERIES: Whispering Key Book 1
AUTHOR: May Archer
NARRATOR: Michael Dean
PUBLISHER: Self-published
LENGTH: 11 hours 50 minutes
RELEASE DATE: May 22, 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:
May Archer’s Off Plan is the first book in her Whispering Key series, a spin-off of Book 3 of her Love in O’Leary series, The Secret. The common thread is Dr. Mason Bloom, the younger brother of Micah Bloom, who is one half of the couple featured in The Secret. We meet Mason in that book and get a sense of his personality and some hints of the trouble in his world. When Off Plan opens, we see just how true that is.
Four months after his fiancee Victoria dumped him, Mason still feels the loss. Not the loss of Victoria, ironically, but rather the loss of the life he thought he had, and thought he wanted. Mason never felt passionate about Victoria, the relationship, … or actually anything really. Content to let others make decisions, he went along for the ride. But once Victoria left, Mason realized his life relied on her choices. With that taken away, the emptiness set in.
So Mason embarks on an adventure. He decides to take a risk. Determined to break out of his mediocre life and establish himself as someone other than “Micah Bloom’s little brother”, he recklessly jumps at the first opportunity – a position as the doctor for an exclusive five-star resort on Whispering Key island in Florida. Mason expects paradise and posh surroundings. But when he arrives, he finds deterioration and desolation. The island of Whispering Key hovers on the brink of ruin and Mason learns the hard way that Rafe Goodman, Mayor of Whispering Key, plays fast and loose with the truth.
Through pride and perseverance, Mason decides to stick it out in Whispering Key. But Rafe’s nephew, Fenn Reardon, does everything he can to change Mason’s mind. Mason and Fenn clash from the moment they meet and the antagonism continues long after Mason arrives. Both make incorrect presumptions and fail to communicate. They are determined to dislike each other despite instant attraction.
Fenn’s anger at his lot in life bleeds through into his treatment of Mason. Fenn lives with Rafe and his cousins “Young” Rafe, Beale, and Gage, but he doesn’t believe that he is part of the family. Rafe took him in five years before when Fenn had nothing, but Fenn believes obligation drove Rafe, not love or family. Fenn thinks Rafe views him as nothing more than an employee of Goodman Outfitters, Rafe’s tour boat company. He’s also got his own broken-heart story to tell. But he refuses to tell it, locking his heartbreak and resentment away where it simmers and stews.
Mason and Fenn’s enemies-to-lovers story arc is heartbreaking in the initial parts of the book, frustrating in the middle, and heartwarming, sweet and swoony in the latter parts. Their chemistry is evident, but their respective stubbornness and emotional baggage force them into sniping, sparring, and denying their attraction for each other. Mason’s bisexual awakening and Fenn’s refusal to get involved with a “straight” man again complicate the dynamic.
Fenn was a tough pill to swallow initially. His resentment and frankly, cruel, unwarranted treatment of Mason, really irritated me. But as the story progressed, Ms. Archer worked her magic and I understood him better and grew to like him more. Similarly, Mason and Fenn’s engagement with each other demonstrated more annoyance than attraction in my view. But that also changed as the story progressed and I started to see how they fit as a couple.
In Off Plan, Ms. Archer shows her skill at bringing small-town quirkiness and camaraderie to life. She fantastically creates the fictional world of Whispering Key in vivid color, with layers of sensory texture. Then she infuses it with unique, eccentric characters who are as loveable as they are laughable but in all the best ways. The Whispering Key residents are all up in each other’s business, but the nosiness and interference are warm and well-intentioned. You really can’t help but fall for this crowd.
Atypically, Ms. Archer’s story here suffers from some bloat. It is slow to get going and stalls out in the middle. The Whispering Key missing treasure serves as a secondary plot that is interesting, amusing, and ultimately important to the series as a whole. But it takes a good amount of pages to provide all of that background and have it play out. At points, I lost the thread of the story and it took a bit to get engaged again.
Michael Dean’s narration augments the story and helps moderate the slow pacing. Throughout the audiobook, he definitely shows his prodigious skill at using his voice to bring dimension to the characters and building emotional connections. However, his vocal performance here fell short of what he typically delivers. He executes the fundamentals like the pro that he is, showing good pacing, emphasis, inflection, and intonation. Mr. Dean also displays his strength in character differentiation, particularly between genders and ages. He vocally demarks Mason from Fenn through pitch and tone. Mason’s tone is deeper and slower; Fenn’s higher and quicker.
Surprisingly, Mr. Dean falters on delivering Mason and Fenn’s voices consistently, particularly in monologues. With dialogue where the voices are contrasted through the volley of back-to-back sentences, I knew who was who. But in the longer narrative sections or monologues, the distinction slipped and what I heard was closer to a mid-tone voice that blurred the lines between Mason and Fenn. At times, I couldn’t tell who was speaking and had to reorient myself before I could continue listening.
Notwithstanding, on the whole, Off Plan is a solid, enjoyable audiobook. If you are used to Ms. Archer and Mr. Dean’s stellar work, you will likely recognize this is not on par with what you expect from them, as I did. But keep in mind that par for these two is excellent for everyone else, so you will still appreciate and enjoy this story in its audio format.
RATING: 
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