**BT & Giveaway** The Plan ~ Qwen Salisbury

THE PLAN

An Adult Contemporary Romance

By Qwen Salsbury

Published by Omnific Publishing

Released February 2014

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Day of Employment: 359

11:05 a.m.

Location: Cubicles outside Canon’s office.
Co-workers: Betting on how long Canon’s new PA will last.
Me: No doubts. Ms. Gum-smacker won’t last the day. I need to place my bet.
Manolo Blahnik’s New Fall Shoes: Mine. As soon as Madeline hands over my winnings.

Emma Baker has never spoken a word to Alaric Canon, nor has he to her. But she’s studied him every day across the office tundra for almost a year. Canon is hard and fierce, terrifying and beautiful. He’s also the most stern, unforgiving person Emma has ever seen. Emma’s co-workers run a betting pool for Personal Assistant terminations. There’s a separate pot for the day one leaves without crying. Not likely…Canon made a former Navy SEAL cry.

He has high standards and low tolerance. Everyone knows it. Everyone stays away. Everyone who can, that is. Except Emma. She can’t look away. Alaric Canon is the single most attractive man she’s ever seen. Bar none.

Canon has never noticed her. Not once in almost a year. She’s not even a blip on his radar. But she will be. His radar will be blipless no more.

First lemme say this. I loved the thoughts behind the story. I loved the concept, I loved the ticking of the days of her employment. It was cute, it was different. However, in the end, the story fell short for me, and this is why. 

While it was amusing at first to get all the unique little quips from Emma, by the time I got to the end of the book, I really wanted to throttle her. Her inner monologue was like dealing with a person hyped on speed. Twenty different topics in a matter of second, and it never stopped. Not even during the sex scenes. Because of this, I had a difficult time even reading the sex scenes. I kept having to go back and re-read and asking "are they having sex now?", "wait, what's going on?" I understand the need for comedic relief in a story, however, there's a time and place for everything, and being serious has it's place as well. 

I also fell like the title of the story was deceiving as well. Yes, Emma had a plan... what was it? We were never really explained what her plan was, or if we were, it got lost in her maze of quips (see previous paragraph). 

We also never really get any insight into Emma's background or Alaric's for that matter. The lack of dialogue between the two of them was very disheartening and I felt like it hurt the intimacy between them. By the end of the story I felt as thought I was ready about strangers. I couldn't *feel* the connection between them. We learn virtually nothing about Alaric as a person. 

Overall, TO ME, it fell short. Again, the concept was great. Demanding boss, makes his pa's cry and walk within a few hours, only one employee can "handle" him and succeeds where others have failed. LOVE THAT. I would love to re-read this story with out all of Emma's "many words of wisdom", and more conversations between the two of them, and more background info on both of the characters. I mean really... who compares the taste of their man with Santa & the North Pole?? 

I'm not a reviewer who gives "stars" or "page turns", I am one who will say, read the story for yourself and lemme know what you think. 

Qwen Salsbury was born in Kansas and somehow keeps ending up back there. Raised on her grandparent’s five acre homestead within the city limits, her imagination was honed during long days of quiet play and spartan access to a TV signal. Now mother to handsome boys, she strives to ensure they appreciate potential adventures found within the pages of a book, an honest day’s work, and what ingenuity may yield from mundane objects like a string and a cup. The boys prefer a PS3.

After spending time in corporate America, she returned to school and received a BA in English, Creative Writing and Poetry from Pittsburg State University, the alma mater of Pulitzer Prize winning poet, James Tate. She worked on a Masters there until going on to receive a juris doctorate from Washburn School of Law.

A seven-time Sigma Tau Delta writing award winner, her fiction and poetry have appeared in literary magazines and have been selected by fiction communities as featured story of the month and year. Predominantly a writer of romance, her romantic fiction varies from contemporary to historical to fantasy, though often with a humorous slant and poetic undertones.

For reasons she can’t even articulate herself, she decided to start writing fiction again while solo parenting and attending law school (during Constitutional Law class, to be exact.).

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