Best Staged Plans
By Claire Cook
In a Boston suburb, lives Sandy and her husband Gregg, and their grown son. He lives with them in the" bat cave'. Sandy and Greg want to put their house on the market to downsize.
Sandy, is a house stager, a house stager is hired to design the house with furniture and decor to stage for the buyer.
Sandy is getting very uptight trying to get the house ready to put on the market. With shelves to be fixed, and floor to be re-done, and painting of the walls. Her husband and her son are not fixing the house fast enough and good enough for her expectations.
So when opportunity knocks on her door, " calgon take me away moment". She does what any woman that wants to pull out her hair and scream, ESCAPE. Escape, she does, she leaves Boston, to go to stage a hotel, in Atlanta. Thanks to her friend, Denise's friendship, she lands a job at a boutique hotel.
Sandy is very excited, this is her opportunity to see her newly married daughter, Shannon and her son-in-law, Chase. Sandy thinks this would be a nice time to catch up with mother-daughter relationship. But unfortunately, it does not work out that way. Shannon has to leave, for job training. Of all places back home in Boston. You talk about switch reversal, how funny.
She and her son-in-law are stuck together. He does, not call her mom, or mame, but a cross between. Her daughter calls her and asks her one night to make a home cooked meal for Chase. Sandy's idea of a home cooked meal is, going to Trader Joe's, to prepare one of those pre-prepared meals. She does pull it off. Her son-in-law, loves the dessert so much he wants the recipe. He doesn't even realize how simple it is. He thinks Sandy slaved over for hours making him a nice meal.
My Thoughts: This is my favorite time of year for reading. This is the time, I look at my stacks of books. Picked out my summer reading. This is my most reading I get done for the year. Mainly because of school.
I enjoyed reading Best staged Plans. It did not have alot of substance. But, for what kind of mood I was in. It was enjoyable. I loved the title of the book, it fits what was going on in Sandy's life. Does things go as planned when we want something bad enough? It always seems when something we want bad enough, there is a hitch.
There is a moral to the story, but not too deep, that it takes away from the story line.
Sandy life as a house stager is hired to fix home to prepare for the buyer. But, her home life is in chaos, at least she thinks so.
"I sat there and tried to let it all sink in. My house wasn't perfect, and neither was my life. And there's an emotional cost to new beginnings, a scary kind of letting go and heading into the unknown that fights with the part of me that wants to believe all the world can and should be staged. "
I enjoyed reading, Best Staged Plans. It was a fun romp of Sandy's crazy family and her best friend Denise. There was a incident that I am not going to disclose. But, it was so fun to read. They both did something, none of us would dare do in our right mind. But, in a book you can write anything. It is fiction. What I enjoyed, was reading about her escapes in Trader Joes.
I was sent this novel by the publisher. Best Staged Plans will be released next week, on June 7th. Thank you Claire, I hope y'all have a great summer line up of books to read, and lots of beach fun.