The Backup Plan

The problem which I had with this book was not with the set-up. The initial idea is good. Dinah returns home, to Charleston, shattered from her experiences as a war correspondent with a strange idea that she can find her past love, Bobby, and reconnect. She sees a life with Bobby as an alternative, second-best solution now that she can no longer do what she wants. Instead of Bobby she bumps into his brother Cordell and is attracted from the first but she needs to fight against this because a future with him isn't in her planning at all. Dinah's emotional problems are well set out and it is possible to understand how she clings on to something which has kept her going in harder times and her reluctance to try something new.

Where I had show more the issue with the book is in the way in which the author solves Dinah's problems. It is difficult to explain this without spoilers but just to say that although a life with Bobby is supposed to be second best for her the identical life, but with Cordell, is OK because they love one another passionately. I would have liked to see Dinah getting back to the life she had before, recovered and ready to go, rather than give it all up for a man. I thought that it was all a bit unsatisfying. show less

Library book for Kindle; first in the Charleston trilogy. After ace journalist watches her fiance be killed in a car explosion in Afghanistan, Dinah hightails it home & imagines herself married to the safe brother, Bobby. Except he's engaged and in love with another. But sparks fly with his bad boy brother, Cord.

1.5 stars

Through sheer persistence I finished this audiobook. The narration was not the problem. The storyline was just plain weak.

Dinah, who is a self-professed 'brillant, talented, determined, courageous and top-in-her-field' war correspondent in Afghanistan, has PTSD. Understandable. Her solution? Resign. Good move. And move back to her home town to marry her childhood sweetheart that she hasn't spoken to, much less thought about, in 10 years. WHAT??? From this point on, I couldn't take this book with more than a grain of salt, and I hadn't even moved past the first 10% of the book. Unfortunately it didn't improve. Dinah proved herself time and again, to be self-centred, ignorant, stupid and completely unbelievable character. show more (Really, a war correspondent who is stupid would have died in the first week of their assignment.) In reality, I was more interested in her parents minor marital problems than in anything to do with Dinah and poor old Cord.

There really isn't any point mentioning any more of this plotline.

This was my first book by Sherryl Woods. I won't be going out of my way to read another. show less

not really fast enough or differrent pace for me... too bad, I was looking forward to a trilogy I hadn't read yet.