The Layover

Score: 5/5 Bookmarks

Steam Level: 🍆 /5

Thank you to Putnam for gifting me a review copy of The Layover by Lacie Waldon. I adored this book and it was just the tropical escape I needed as we settle into the grey, rainy winter here in Seattle.

Ava is a flight attendant, on her last trip. She just got engaged and agreed with her fiancee that she’ll quit her job and stay in one place for a change. Her parents have always been a bit nomadic, wanderers, and as a result all she wants is to put down roots.

Ava is hoping for the perfect farewell trip, but as soon as she enters the employee parking lot at the airport things start to go sideways, all thanks to a hot but irritating man she’s secretly held a grudge against for years. He tries to steal her parking space, then her favorite pre-flight breakfast place, and then it turns out he’s on her multi-leg flight to Belize. Then the crew gets stranded in Belize after some plane issues, and Ava starts to doubt everything she thought she wanted. Has she been fighting against her parent’s lifestyle for the wrong reasons?

I really identified with Ava, on such a deep level. My mom had always been adventurous and different from other parents while I was growing up. As a result, I skewed the other direction and wanted to be responsible and prepared, risk-adverse, and ‘normal’. But the older I get the more I start to think my mom might have been onto something, and I start finding myself leaning more back in that direction.

We also got to chat with Lacie as part of book club and she was absolutely delightful. She has some pretty hilarious stories from her work as a flight attendant, and she told us all about how she writes from the jump seat on flights.

So, you should definitely check out this book if you haven’t already. A word of warning though, it will give you seriously itchy feet to go on an adventure!

Synopsis:

After ten years as a flight attendant, Ava Greene is poised to hang up her wings and finally put down roots. She's got one trip left before she bids her old life farewell, and she plans to enjoy every second of it. But then she discovers that former pilot Jack Stone -- the absurdly gorgeous, ridiculously cocky man she's held a secret grudge against for years -- is on her flight. And he has the nerve to flirt with her, as if he doesn't remember the role he played in the most humiliating night of her life. Good thing she never has to see him again after they land....

But when their plane encounters mechanical problems, what should have been a quick stop at the Belize airport suddenly becomes a weekend layover. Getting stuck on a three-hour flight with her nemesis was bad enough. Being stranded with him at a luxury resort in paradise? Even with the sultry breeze and white sand to distract her, it will take all the rum punch in the country to drown out his larger-than-life presence.

Yet the more time Ava spends with him under the hot Caribbean sun, the more she begins to second-guess everything she thought she knew about him... and everything she thought she wanted from her life. And all too soon, she might have to choose between keeping her feet on the ground and her head in the clouds....

An unexpected tropical layover with her nemesis turns a flight attendant's life upside down in this witty, breezy debut romantic comedy about life -- and love -- 30,000 feet above the ground.