Kristin's Bookshelf

📖 Alternate Plans
✍️ Ainsley Rhodes
📚 Melwood Views, Book 1
🎙️ Elisabeth Knight & Noah Trent
🎁 ALC Provided by Blush Audiobooks
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

This book was simply enjoyable. Even though Caroline is quite literally going through it, “Alternate Plans” still felt like a modern, feel-good love story, and honestly, it was exactly what I needed.

Reed: MAJOR green flag vibes. This man has been longing for Caroline since high school, he’s a vet, he adopts a cat that can’t find a home, and he treats her like an absolute queen. Quite literally, what more could I ask for?

And Caroline? Also a green flag. She’s smart enough to leave a cheating spouse and, when love unexpectedly finds her again, she walks toward it instead of running away.

I especially loved that neither of them lets the pregnancy stop them from exploring what they’re feeling. So many romances throw way too many obstacles at the couple. Miscommunication. Red flags popping up out of nowhere. The spouse begging to be taken back.

Not here.

This one was simple. It was lovely. It made me feel good.

I also loved how REAL everything felt. These characters ate fast food, drank Red Bull, got drunk, and had conversations with their friends that actually sounded like conversations I’d hear in real life. Nothing felt overly polished or manufactured for the sake of creating the perfect romance. Caroline and Reed felt like actual people living actual lives who just happened to be falling in love (again) along the way.

And can we talk about the DUET narration?! My absolute favorite way to listen to a romance. Elisabeth Knight and Noah Trent were wonderful together, and having each narrator consistently voice their own character made Caroline and Reed’s conversations and chemistry feel so much more natural. Their performances fit the warmth and sweetness of the story perfectly and made an already easy-to-love romance even better on audio.

I love love, and I’m very glad these two fictional people found it with each other. ❤️