Unmatched Mushy Feelings | Best Laid Plans by Roan Parrish

Title: Best Laid Plans
Series: Garnet Run #2
Author: Roan Parrish
Published: February 23, 2021
Genre(s): Romance: Contemporary
Page Count: 266
Rating:

Summary from Goodreads:

Charlie Matheson has spent his life taking care of things. When his parents died two days before his eighteenth birthday, he took care of his younger brother, even though that meant putting his own dreams on hold. He took care of his father’s hardware store, building it into something known several towns over. He took care of the cat he found in the woods…so now he has a cat.

When a stranger with epic tattoos and a glare to match starts coming into Matheson’s Hardware, buying things seemingly at random and lugging them off in a car so beat-up Charlie feels bad for it, his instinct is to help. When the man comes in for the fifth time in a week, Charlie can’t resist intervening.

Rye Janssen has spent his life breaking things. Promises. His parents’ hearts. Leases. He isn’t used to people wanting to put things back together—not the crumbling house he just inherited, not his future and certainly not him. But the longer he stays in Garnet Run, the more he can see himself belonging there. And the more time he spends with Charlie, the more he can see himself falling asleep in Charlie’s arms…and waking up in them.

Is this what it feels like to have a home—and someone to share it with?

Following up the absolute ooey-gooey perfection of Better Than People, the first book in this series, was a tough task. Yet to my shock, Best Laid Plans is even more mushy, sentimental, and sweet than its prequel. Science cannot explain how this is possible, but then again…science has its limits.

The relationship dynamic in this book is sort of like the Grumpy/Sunshine trope, but not quite. Newcomer Rye is a brutally honest asshole who hates for anyone to see his soft side, but he’s not quite grouchy…just abrasive. Meanwhile, strait-laced and calm Charlie isn’t a sunshine, he’s just…stoically dependable and fighting the good fight against intrusive thoughts and overwhelming responsibilities. I do realize that I just framed this book by describing what it’s not, but bear with me here.

I think that one of the characters in Best Laid Plans describes Charlie and Rye’s relationship best when they said: “Rye has that whole feral cat being slowly domesticated at the hands of a patient human thing going on.” Like, here comes Rye, a wild child from Seattle who’s never had a stable home in his life, and he meets big, beefy Charlie who has literally built a house with some imaginary significant other in mind and is just waiting for somebody who’s willing to love him and I…good bye. Don’t worry, I’ll be FINE.

And what I particularly love about this book is the clear give-and-take of the relationship. This isn’t just a book where a down-home country boy helps a damaged city kid find stability. Charlie has his own issues as well, and Rye is gentle yet relentless as he breaks down his lover’s walls. This is very much a book about two people helping each other to be better—not just for each other, but simply for themselves. 

As with the first Garnet Run book, the characters’ pets are a constant presence throughout the story. And honestly, the only actual complaint I have about the book is the animal-related content. Not Charlie and Rye’s cats themselves! There were only two, and they were unobtrusive aspects of the protagonists’ overall family life. Rather, toward the end of the book, a significant number of pages are spent showing Rye’s efforts to open a cat rescue shelter with the house that he inherited in Garnet Run. This plot point comes at kind of an awkward time in the narrative, since it’s in the final few chapters when, normally, the romantic arc is reaching its climax and “I Love Yous” are being exchanged. Parrish shifts the heavy emotional moments to a bit earlier in the story, then goes all in on the characters collaborating to start the cat shelter, which honestly breaks up the momentum of the emotional journey. I do understand that working together on such a large project is meant to convey the bond and closeness between them, but if they’re already so close, already committed, and already in love, then there’s no longer any tension in the relationship that keeps the reader flipping pages.

What I’m saying is: the book is slightly too long-winded in the backend, which ruined the pacing of an otherwise delightfully fluffy and tender and emotionally raw romance.

So. I didn’t quite love Best Laid Plans, but it was a wonderful book nevertheless. Roan Parrish is able to use beautiful prose to lay bare complicated personalities and to convincingly show me how two people can build a functional life together.