Reviewed by Samantha March for Readers' Favorite

The Marshall Plan by Olivia Folmar Ard was intriguing from the start. Our heroine is Molly Marshall, and her life plan has turned out nothing like she thought it might. Though she is engaged to a true genius with multiple degrees and high-paying job offers, her fiancé chose the lackluster career of working in a mom-and-pop shop and spends his time trying to fix motorcycles. She had journalistic aspirations after getting her degrees, but all that has led to is small time freelance articles and an outrageous student loan debt pile up. Her situation has her working in a taco food truck with her always-angry roommate, and constantly questioning where it all went wrong. Molly’s life takes a turn when a scandal she once tried to uncover as a journalism student gets thrust back into the light – and Molly has the chance to bring down a no-good professor with her new information and sources. But in the middle of that scandal is an even bigger, personal scandal that Molly also uncovers. Running with the story will affect family and friends, but is the story too big for Molly to pass up?

Right away, I found this book quite interesting. Molly was a relatable main character, though at times I did find myself getting pretty frustrated with her. She was quick to put others down, especially her fiancé; she was unhappy with her situation yet didn’t seem to feel it was her problem to fix it, and she came off as selfish quite often. It was nice though to see her growth throughout the novel, to see her understanding her mistakes and issues and how to grow from them. That was definitely a key part in the story to me, and I was very happy to see it. There are also lots of plot twists and surprises to keep readers on their toes, and I often found myself having difficulty turning my Kindle off while reading. The ending was especially nice and, though this was book 2 in a series, I didn’t feel like I had missed anything without reading the first. Very solid read.