Series: Landry Love, #3
Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Steam: 🔥🔥🔥
Release Date: June 10th, 2021
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High school sweethearts don’t last. That’s what everyone told me after she left. Willa and I were supposed to, though. We had plans, goals, dreams. But that went belly-up like most other things in my life tend to.
Years later, the town has dubbed me the broody bartender. What I really am is a determined man living his life for someone else.
With another plan in place, soon I’ll be able to start thinking about my own life and the dreams I once gave up.
Then the woman I never stopped loving walks into my bar.
Willa and I parted a few years ago on shaky terms. Hearts were broken, lives torn apart.
She’s back in Landry and she’s relentless. And beautiful.
No matter how much I glower, brush her off, or walk away, she’s always there—parading her adorable animals and angelic face around here like we are best friends instead of exes.
But I’m not ready for her yet.
Will we ever have a second chance at the forever we once planned or will life screw me over yet again?
After meeting Evan in The Denial Game, I was really excited when Amy announced that the third book in the series would be focused on him. We see the broody and moody bartender, who doesn’t have time for Lauren and her quirks, so to actually see a different side of him and to see what got him to that place was really good. And if that’s not enough, we get cameos from the two previous couples and we get to completely enjoy what their lives have become. And of course, we get to return to Landry and explore another side of this small town!
As high school sweethearts, Evan and Willa are truly, madly and deeply in love with each other. Evan comes from a rough home, with an alcoholic father and a younger brother who is struggling to survive. While Willa comes from a strong and supportive home. And yet, their differences only make their relationship that much stronger. With Willa on the fast track to becoming a vet, Evan and Willa move in together so she can start college early and their relationship slowly builds into something beautiful. But when his dad vanishes all of a sudden, Evan has to step up and take care of his baby brother and stop him from going down the wrong path. And in doing so, he has to walk away from his relationship with Willa. Which breaks her heart and their bond, and she goes off to New York while Evan stays in Landry to help raise Trent (who you’ll remember from The Denial Game as well). Walking away from the love of his life is what makes Evan broody and moody, but also just makes him all kinds of irritable.
“You’re what happy and forever looks like.”
I really loved Evan and Willa’s teenage romance, which is what we get in the first few chapters of The Forever Plan. If you thought The Denial Game was steamy, then you’re in for a treat with this one, because Evan and Willa have so much delicious chemistry and they end up naked and in bed together a lot, which I’m always happy to read and enjoy. But coming back to their relationship, it’s adorable. I enjoyed how much they loved each other and how deeply that love ran. Their relationship was about so much more than just the two of them, because Willa adores Trent and is always looking out for him and for Evan in every way possible. And it’s also clear that Evan is willing to do whatever it takes to make sure that Willa is happy and content in her life.
More than Willa and Evan’s adult relationship, I really adored the love between the James brothers. Trent and Evan are all each other has and because of that, they always lean on each other for everything. Evan wants to give Trent everything he couldn’t have and that means giving up everything else in his life. While I understood why Evan did what he did and why he ended things with Willa, I didn’t respect his choices and decisions. It actually annoyed me a little, because I feel like there could have been a way around it! But because of that, we do get to see a lot of Evan and Trent and it’s wonderful. I’m a sucker for familial relationships that run deep and the James brothers have something really strong and special.
“Then she turns the full power of her smile on me and I freeze, my brain short-circuiting at the long-neglected part of me that’s been craving this smile for years.”
While I don’t entirely love Evan for the choices he made, I loved Willa. She’s a riot, quirky and so determined to make sense of her life. Willa is working towards becoming a vet and she comes back to Landry to get a little experience and decides that she’s going to get Evan back. I love how focused she is on making it work and doing whatever she can to show Evan that he’s losing out on the best thing in his life. The things that Willa does, how relentless she is and her love for animals makes up this wonderful character and she’s so relatable and so entertaining. You will most definitely wish that you had a Willa in your life. If you haven’t figured it out yet, this is a second chance romance, featuring characters who are willing to give up everything and sacrifice what makes them happy to help other people.
Like with the other two books, we get to meet so many supporting characters who are entertaining and memorable. Everyone from Willa’s parents to Trent to Chloe and Hayden (who are getting a book later this year!) and of course, we get all of our favourites like Emma and Jess (from The Experiment) and Lauren and Taylor (from The Denial Game). I am sad that we don’t get to meet a lot of members from the Landry gossip gang, because they were so entertaining in the first two books!
Thanks to Amy Alves for generously providing me with an ARC in exchange for an honest review.
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