Like many people, after more than a year of being confined largely to my home and my neighborhood, I have a major case of wanderlust. And even though it has a very serious premise, FLOAT PLAN has me thinking about setting sail across the Caribbean sometime soon (though I would have to get a sailboat and learn how to sail first, I suppose!).

However, the trip that Trish Doller chronicles in her adult debut is hardly a frivolous getaway. When we meet Anna, she’s still reeling 10 months after the death of her fiancé, Ben, by suicide. She’s been living at her mom’s house in Fort Lauderdale and waitressing at a Hooters-esque pirate-themed bar. But when she gets the notification on her phone and realizes that it’s Thanksgiving, the day that she and Ben had planned to embark on an ambitious sailing trip from Florida to Trinidad --- with many stops along the way --- she figures she might as well go for it.

"FLOAT PLAN is simultaneously an alluring travelogue (I challenge anyone to come away from this book without a list of a half-dozen dream vacation destinations) and a moving account of traveling through grief to something on the other side."

Anna is hardly an expert sailor, despite everything she has learned from Ben. To make matters worse, her erstwhile in-laws are making noise about contesting her legal right to the sailboat that he deeded to her. After a harrowing journey to the Bahamas --- and a near equally harrowing almost–one-night stand with a married man --- Anna knows she needs help and advertises for a crewmate. Who should respond to her ad but Keane Sullivan, the handsome Irishman who already has rescued her from the embarrassing drunken aftermath of her poor decisions.

Keane is charming and knowledgeable, and a great cook to boot --- and he gives Anna both the space and the support she needs to grieve. Keane is grieving, too; he wears a prosthetic leg and is mourning the “could have beens” now that he’s no longer viewed as a desirable crew member for lucrative sailing operations or racing teams. Sailing is Keane’s first love, so much so that he has ruined numerous romantic relationships when the lure of the sea proves too attractive.

Anna is definitely not looking for a romantic relationship; as her journey begins, she’s too busy remembering Ben’s detailed itinerary. But as she settles into island life and starts to open up to changes in plans, she begins to leave the door open for a life after Ben --- a life both similar to and different from the one they had planned together.

FLOAT PLAN is simultaneously an alluring travelogue (I challenge anyone to come away from this book without a list of a half-dozen dream vacation destinations) and a moving account of traveling through grief to something on the other side. Unlike many romance novels, Doller doesn’t need to inject artificial conflict into her plot to create drama. The inherent, movingly authentic conflict is between her character’s past and future selves, and if her new beginning has room for someone new by her side.

Whether readers take FLOAT PLAN on vacation or read it at home, it will buoy their spirits and inspire them to take big chances as they chart their own course.