Kathleen is eighty years old. After a run-in with an intruder, her daughter wants her to move into a residential home. She’s not having any of it. What she craves – needs – is adventure.
Liza is drowning under the daily stress of family life. The last thing she needs is her mother jetting off on a wild holiday, making Liza dream of a solo break of her own.
Martha is having a quarter-life crisis. Unemployed, unloved and uninspired, she just can’t get her life together. But she knows something has to change.
When Martha sees Kathleen’s advert for a driver and companion to take an epic road trip across America, she decides this job might be the answer to her prayers. Travelling with a stranger? No problem. She's not the world's best driver, but it couldn’t be worse than living with her parents again. And anyway, how much trouble can one eighty-year-old woman be?
As these women embark on the journey of a lifetime, they all discover it’s never too late for adventure…
Review: I am a confirmed fan of Sarah Morgan’s writing and couldn’t wait to get my teeth into her latest novel. The cover spoke of summer, sea and a ride in a fast convertible - just the tonic for reading on a dull and snowy day. As I expected, I was quickly drawn into the world of Sarah’s characters.
The story focuses on three women and their ambitions. Kathleen is an eighty-year-old who is not ready to settle down to the life in a residential home that her daughter has planned for her. Liza, Kathleen’s aforementioned daughter, is doing her best to be a good wife and mother to her husband and their teenaged twins, but realising that there must be more to life than this. Martha is a 25-year-old divorcee who is back home living with her unsupportive parents and unsure of what the future holds for her. Kathleen, a former travel show presenter, decides that she wishes to fulfil her ambition to drive along Route 66 in a red sports car before it’s too late. Much against Liza’s wishes, she advertises for a companion and driver for the trip, and Martha takes the job in spite of having little driving experience or having been to America before. As the two ladies travel across the USA, they learn lots about each other, and, at the same time, come to realise a few things about themselves. In spite of the distance they are apart, mother and daughter also begin to understand each other better than ever before.
I loved this book from the first page to the last, and would recommend it to other readers as a great summer read. The three central characters are all fascinating in their own way. I loved the relationship that developed between Kathleen and Martha, who understood each other so well in spite of the age difference, and Kathleen’s matchmaking! It was also great to witness the growing understanding between Kathleen and Liza, as well as Liza’s acknowledgement that her own situation had to change. There are also men, past and present, in this story, but they are definitely supporting characters. I was amazed by Martha’s ability to jump into that unfamiliar car and drive out of the centre of Chicago, but then spent the first half of the book worrying about how she was going to cope with the traffic in Los Angeles, having witnessed that first-hand. This was a great heartwarming story, not lacking in humour but also full of emotion. It had me in tears more than once, but smiling by the end.
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I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book. I was a bit disappointed with the ending. More of how Marha’s life panned out. Maybe there’s another book to follow this ?
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