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    The Best Laid Plans
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    The Best Laid Plans
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    The Best Laid Plans
    Ebook240 pages3 hours

    The Best Laid Plans

    By SARAH MAYBERRY

    4/5

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    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this ebook



    Boundaries. The key to how corporate lawyer Alexandra Knight manages her busy life. However, lately all her precisely drawn lines are getting blurred. Blame it on her out-of-control biological clock that is ignoring her single status and on Ethan Stone.

    Because her sexy, no-strings colleague has posed an outrageous solution to her dilemmahe'll be her baby daddy. This from the guy who avoids all commitment? Okay, so they're attracted to each other. Really, really attracted. But crossing the line from coworker to co-parent with Ethan could ruin Alex for all other men. After all, when you've had the best

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarlequin Superromance
    Release dateNov 1, 2010
    ISBN9781426875236
    Unavailable
    The Best Laid Plans
    Author

    SARAH MAYBERRY

    Sarah Mayberry was born in Melbourne, Australia. Ever since she learned to read and write she has wanted to be an author. She studied professional writing and literature before embarking on various writing-related jobs, working as a magazine editor and in various story-related roles on Australia's longest running serial drama, Neighbours. She inherited a love of romances from both her grandmothers and fulfilled her fondest wish when she was accepted for publication.

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    Reviews for The Best Laid Plans

    4/5

    13 ratings5 reviews

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    • 5/5
      Sarah Mayberry is a favorite author of mine and I had already planned to buy the book when Tell Harlequin surprised me with a free copy to read for a market research survey. To say it was a pleasant surprise would be an understatement.

      Melbourne attorney Alexandra Knight is not having a great morning. She has a client appointment first thing, a hole in her stockings and a run-in with her ex-boyfriend - who's wrestling a baby and carriage into a car a mere 18 months after ending their seven-year live-in relationship over a refusal to have children. Now 38 and still single, Alex's anger at being childless soon turns to panicked desperation when her doctor gives her the lowdown on her dwindling chances of conception. Facing the possibility of never having a family of her own, something she's always wanted, finally brings her to break down in tears in front of Ethan Stone, a co-worker she plays racquetball with but otherwise maintains a professional friendship with.

      Ethan may cultivate a ladies' man appearance and shun marriage after his extremely ugly divorce, but he's moved by Alex's pained confession. As he's comforting her, he admits to himself that he's in a similar situation. Now 42, divorced and bitterly opposed to commitment, he also laments his lost chance at parenthood. Though he dotes on his younger brother's boys and delights in being the best uncle ever, he wishes he could've had what his brother has. When he finds out about Alex's plan to conceive via sperm donor, he sees an opportunity to possibly parent a child without entering into a relationship that would ultimately just fall apart.

      The book's strength is in its characters. Declining fertility, ticking biological clocks, fear of commitment, fertility ethics - all of these are rather weighty issues that could easily have bogged the book down if the characters were not as strong as they were. Instead, the characters drive the plot with a firm hand. They own the issues, leaving the story to be about them, their insecurities, strengths and struggles, rather than leaving them mere riders on the weighty topic bus.

      Both characters are deep and nuanced. Alex's desire for the picket fenced fantasy is more than just a ticking clock. It's born out of her difficult childhood and her careful personality as well. Ethan's aversion to commitment and re-marriage is due as much to his divorce as it is to his deeply loyal personality and his work as a divorce and family lawyer. Both struggle deeply with their insecurities and Mayberry lets us see their struggles - even going so far as to show Ethan physically ill and in tears as he wars with himself over Alex. At no point are their problems treated facilely.

      But neither does the angst and conflict overshadow the romance. Though their HEA and any open acknowledgement of their mutual attraction comes late in the story, Mayberry spends the time early in the story establishing their connection. They tease each other good-naturedly on the racquetball court, laugh easily together over one of Ethan's elaborately cooked meals, and comfort each other through the baby drama. She shows us that they're good friends above all, so it's easy to imagine their taking life's curveballs in stride.

      Like the other books I've read by this author, this is a book about two fully-fleshed characters navigating their own inner conflicts. The plot serves to highlight their personalities, motivations and actions, not the other way around. I'd recommend this book unreservedly to those who like meatier, character-focused books with a slow-burning romance. It's not a quick, fluffy, escapist sort of read, but I had a hard time putting it down all the same.
    • 3/5
      I like the friends to lovers theme, so this book appealed to me. I found the friendship quite believable and enjoyed reading about them realizing their feelings.
    • 5/5
      Sarah Mayberry is a very talented writer who creates unique characters and story lines that offer "something extra". I knew that "The Best Laid Plans" would be good, I just didn't know that it would be great! I love the age of these characters, a woman in her late thirties and a man in his early forties. Oh, yeah! We don't stop living when we turn 30--we actually start living a fuller life once we let go of a fixation with youth. Being young at heart and appreciating each day is the key to vitality in life. It's not the years that matter--it's the moments in the days that make all the difference. Something else that the author touches on here is one of the great ironies of life: some people who really want children have a very difficult time in becoming parents, and others who don't want children seem to become parents with very little effort. The longing to have a child is a particular heartache, one that both the heroine and hero experience in "The Best Laid Plans". Alexandra Knight is a corporate lawyer who very early on in life had to accept adult responsibilities in order to care for her mother after a serious accident. Alex has worked hard to survive, and to thrive, but her heart's desire continues to elude her, and that is her dream of becoming a mother. Her one serious romance ended because her live-in partner refused to share her plans for a family. More than a year after their breakup, Alex has a chance meeting with her former love, and he has become a parent with a beautiful baby son. Hearing that the birth was an "accident" does not lessen the pain for Alex, who begins to think of seeking out the means to become a single parent. Her coworker, Ethan Stone, seems to be the quintessential playboy, with looks, money, and an apparent carefree lifestyle. Alex and Ethan have a weekly racquetball "date", and they have always been just casual friends. However, when Alex breaks down and reveals her inner turmoil, Ethan surprises her by telling her that he has always wanted to be a father. His bitterness over the breakup of his marriage has kept in the bachelor lifestyle, on his own and commitment-free. Complications arise when he volunteers to become the donor for Alex's planned pregnancy. He wants to be full-fledged father, and he and Alex put their lawyer's minds together and come up with an "acceptable arrangement". When it comes down to the actual clinical conception, both have second thoughts about the coldness of the act, and they question their own motives. A held-at-bay passion breaks free, and then the friendship changes. This is an exceptionally well-characterized story, and when we learn the truth of Ethan's ex-wife's cruelty, we truly feel his torment. There are no easy answers here, and I applaud the author for the many sensitive issues she touched on in bringing this story to life. What you have always wanted may not be what you get, but after a long while of being denied, you may end up with much more than you ever imagined! A recommended romance read for those embrace love stories with "something extra".
    • 3/5
      I received this book through the Harlequin Ambassador's program. Initially, I didn't like the premise of a woman unable to conceive and looking for artificial insemination. However, it is well written for the subject material and it also was a very sweet love story. I generally don't care for books about babies, but Sarah Mayberry has covered this subject in a way that made it a compelling story. I will look for more of her books.
    • 4/5
      You know Sarah Mayberry’s a good writer when she makes me – someone who seriously dislikes babies in books– enjoy a book about two people who want babies. This woman can write anything and I love it. Of course, this one was never going to be my favourite, but it’s very good. Yes, both leading characters first and foremost want a baby, but what this story is really about it is how they are disillusioned by life, and how that changes when they meet each other. I feared that children were going to come at the expense of the relationship, but by the end marriage and children had gained equal importance in the minds of both hero and heroine. I really liked having a slightly older couple, mostly because it made their dilemma so much more believable. Alexandra is thirty-eight going on thirty-nine and panics when she runs into the ex she left because he refused to have children – to discover he’s had a baby with another woman. She realises that even if she meets someone now it’s going to be a good long while before the topic of children can even be brought up; and by then it might be too late. Ethan is in his early forties and pretty much wants the same things, but his ex-wife took all that away from him. Sarah Mayberry has this way of making me all choked up. She finds a way of taking something that could be mundane in the hands of another writer and making it something gut-wrenching and special. Alex’s horrible realisation she might be too late for the things she’d always hoped for in life was a big emotional thing. I didn’t need to feel the way she did to get how devastating it was for her. Same goes for Ethan. On the subject of Ethan, he was definitely a different kind of man to most romance novel heroes. He was such a regular guy. Sure, he was a pretty wealthy career man, but in the end the things he wanted out of life were straightforward, and he’d had them all taken from him. How nice for a category romance hero to be someone who simply wanted a wife he loved and a couple of kids. No exterior dramas or anything; just a man who’d thought his life was heading in the right direction, and who then had the rug pulled out from under him. Perhaps the most memorable scene for me was when Ethan approached Alex about the possibility of being the father of her child. It’s the small things that make Mayberry a better writer than most others, and in this scene it was the way he nearly knocked over his coffee, and the colour in his face that showed his anxiety that made me feel for him, and love him a little bit. Of course it would be really nice if these books could be published without first being Americanised. The story is set in Melbourne, Australia, after all. But alas, publishers have no faith in their readers understanding a few differences in speech and spelling here and there… I’m getting a little worried because I’ve ploughed through Sarah Mayberry’s books like an obsessed stalker, and I’ve almost run out!