Best Laid Plans by Roan Parrish

Narrated by Greg Boudreaux

Best Laid Plans is the second in Roan Parrish’s Garnet Run series, and tells the story of Charlie Matheson, whom we first me in Better than People (Charlie is Jack’s brother).

Charlie and Jack’s parents died in a car crash when Charlie was a few days from turning 18 and Jack was only 13. Charlie went from anticipating playing college football to suddenly raising a teenaged boy – when he was only a teenager himself. I have a son who’s just turned 18 and so Charlie’s backstory hit me in a new way as I listened. I tried to imagine my own son learning how to run a business, manage the finances and raise a sibling, cook meals and do the other housework etc. The enormity of what Charlie stepped up to struck me particularly.

Charlie was so focused on raising Jack, saving the family hardware business and keeping going, he didn’t have time or the bandwidth for anything else. He’s now 36 and he’s lonely but he’s had virtually no relationship experience. He’s barely even had time to truly consider his sexuality.

And then he meets Rye Janssen.

Rye has just inherited a house on Crow Lane. For those who have read or listened to Better Than People, this is the house that Jack could see from his own place.

Rye inherited the house from his grandfather – a grandfather he never knew and had never met. After having left home at age 16 when his bigoted parents made his life too difficult to stay, he’s been bouncing from one rental to another, sharing various houses with so many strangers and couch-surfing when he got evicted. The prospect of a home of his own is like a dream come true so he packs up his duffel and he and his cat, Marmot, and moves to Wyoming. Only the house is derelict and the home he hoped to build seems farther away than ever.

Rye determines to rebuild the house, rather ambitiously thinking he can learn what he needs to know from YouTube videos and good intentions. He’s extremely self-sufficient and knows better than to rely on anyone else. He’s been on his own for a long time. 

He meets Charlie at Matheson’s where he goes to buy various home renovation thingies and that’s where the story really begins. Charlie is absolutely a caretaker. He does have a bit of a hero complex. He’s a fixer and he’s a worrier. He hates the thought of Rye hurting himself if the house falls down around his ears.

Charlie convinces Rye to utilise his help in rebuilding the house and from there they begin to build a relationship of their own. The unbelievable note hit for me when Charlie, having known Rye for only a week or two, was prepared to be a coborrower for a loan so Rye could pay for the necessary repairs. That seemed way beyond realistic to me.

However, it did mean that when Charlie offered Rye his spare bedroom while the house was being fixed up and a job at Matheson’s, I wasn’t very surprised.

The story is fairly self-contained, domestic and relatively conflict-free. It’s low angst even though some of the topics covered in the story are not (death of parents, grief, anxiety, homophobia and bigotry). Charlie and Rye’s courtship proceeds fairly smoothly. It wasn’t so much about what was keeping them apart as much as them figuring out what they were going to be together.

I liked the way Rye and Charlie negotiated sexual intimacy. It showed a different style of relationship than I’d seen before and it fit with the characters very well.

I was a little concerned at the power imbalance; Rye was essentially homeless and depended on Charlie for a roof over his head, a job and the finances to fix up the Crow Lane house. It was really only because Charlie didn’t abuse that and Rye could stand up for himself, even if it meant spiting his own face to do it, that it worked for me at all. I would have liked it to be a bit more explicitly addressed, however.

The narration is of course excellent. What else could we expect from Greg Boudreaux? Rye and Charlie each have distinct vocal tones which fit entirely with their characters and physicality. There was one part of the story where Charlie had a wobble in his voice as if he was getting teary; it was implied in the text but not specified and it was perfect in the listen. It’s moments like that where I appreciate audiobooks the most. Where the narrator’s interpretation of the story adds something to my experience. In any good listen, the narrator does that of course, but there’s an extra level some narrators bring to their performance and Greg Boudreaux is certainly one who regularly does just that.

Best Laid Plans is fairly slow moving and cosy; there is no black moment really. I’ve noticed a bit of a trend in romance in the last year or so. I think it’s partly in response to Covid and so many of us turning to comfort in in our reading and partly an expansion of the genre as it embraces different story arcs. If a listener is after comfort rather than adventure, this book has a lot to offer. Plus, there are cats.

Kaetrin

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