Plan Bea is the story about the troubled relationship between a mother and her daughter. After a tragedy twelve years ago, Bea has all but pushed her daughter, Annabel, away from her. She has managed to become the mother no one would want. Suddenly, Bea tries to improve the relationship and Annabel is justifiably surprised and confused. What is Bea's motivation? Secrets are eventually revealed, but will this be enough to ease the pain Bea has caused?
I found this to be an interesting story and the book was easy to read.

I received a free copy of this book through LibraryThing Early Reviewers and the opinions expressed in this review are my own. ( )

This is a story about a woman who has spent nearly half her life feeling like she was never good enough for her mother. Due to a tragic event that occurred just before our main character gets married, her mother Beatrice, in a misguided effort to deal with her pain and loss, emotionally shuts her daughter out, opting to have a single day each week that they have a "mandatory phone call" to check-in with each other. Not your standard mother-daughter relationship, to say the least.
One day Beatrice announces she's getting married and wants her daughter to help her with the wedding planning. Even though she has enough on her plate already, her daughter agrees, still desperately trying to gain her mother's acceptance and love after all these years.
Over the next several weeks Beatrice drags her daughter out to all sorts of wedding planning activities, but seems to completely disregard any opinion her daughter has about all of it, opting instead, it seems, for exactly the opposite that the daughter chooses. Additionally, the mother seems to show no interest what-so-ever in getting to know her grandson.
Suddenly things start to change, and the family dynamic seems to be coming closer together as the wedding day approaches and gets closer. When the day finally arrives, everyone is in for a big surprise, especially Beatrice's daughter, who finally realizes what all the trouble has been about lately.
A good, fun, easy read. I enjoyed it. I realize it's a pre-published copy, but the only thing that really bothered me was the complete lack of editing as far as spelling and grammatical errors. I hope these are fixed before the book actually hits the shelves, because they are glaringly obvious. ( )

Annabel is living a great life. She has an awesome husband and two precious children. Everything seems right in her world except for one little problem. Annabel has a mother that is rude, thinks she knows everything and can make you want to go screaming out the door when she comes for a visit. Why can't her mom be like other moms? The quiet loving nurturing kind that everyone adores. Well as luck would have it, Annabel has Bea as her mom.

I think as I read this story, it made me realize that no one has a perfect life. What may seem like great relationships between family members are really hidden hurt and pain that causes friction at every gathering. The characters are great with wonderful , real emotions that keep readers on their toes. I liked the unexpected twists in the story. To say I didn't see thrm coming is an understatement. The author does an exceptional job of exploring relationships and taking you on a journey you won't forget. I'm hoping for a sequel to this book because there is a tiny bit of unfinished business . I won't spoil it for you, but be sure to pick up this book and enjoy a story that has you laughing, crying and reminding you that not everything is as it seems.

I received a copy of this book from Librarything for an honest review. ( )

I'm a little torn on this book - at times, the emotional interactions of the characters were very insightful, but at other times, they felt remarkably stilted and awkward. I feel that the author is incredibly good at some aspects of interpersonal relationships, and as a result, some of the other parts that are not quite as masterfully handled fall flat.
I always feel bad bringing this up, but sadly it grew increasingly distracting as I read - there are numerous grammatical issues. Quite often, the tenses simply don't match, and I needed to reread to see if I tripped up somewhere. Similarly, I was jarred by inconsistent use of contractions in the dialogue - a character may use "I am" and "I'm" in the same short sentence. The prose often brought me out of the story.
Emotional reactions by characters also sometimes seemed to be at a discord. Perhaps, gauging by the vocabulary, a normal conversation would be happening, and then suddenly someone would slam their fist into a table. There seeemed to be a lot of incongruity between words and actions, especially actions that are meant to display emotional states.
The author is very good at showing the complexities of relationships, especially long term family ones, where the shared history is nuanced and includes many life events. The intricate reactions that ripple down from the character's lives are explored in a very clear way. I feel that this is where the strength of this book lies, and wish that it was not affected by the issues I mentioned above. I feel like there's something solid here, with a lot of emotional honesty, but it still needs polish to make the rougher patches match the places where the author really shines.

A story of a relationship between many characters and how one decision can affect many things even in the future that we cannot see. It makes you think want to think before doing things of how it can affect what goes on as a result of the decision. ( )