Ever since I was a little girl, I loved few things more than a good road trip—short antiquing road trips, long climbing mountain road trips, epic winding coastal road trips . . .
I loved them all.
Then in my dating days, I realized that one of the best ways to find out if a fellow was for me was to get in a car and drive. Nothing makes it more clear faster that a guy is a whiner or a control freak, a sports addict or a humorless bore than a good road trip.
But road trips didn’t just show me what a guy wasn’t—they also showed me what his was in the best sense of the word: the nature lover, the classic rock fan (who sang all the way to Nebraska), the insightful poet and, of course, the one I married: a guy who, like his parents, loved to read aloud in the car. (My heart didn’t stand a chance.)
Given the potential of a road trip when it comes to romance (what could be more romantic than driving into a Malibu sunset or cruising country roads or rolling into a mountain meadow under a midnight blue sky), it probably shouldn’t surprise us that some of our favorite authors have also found the trope makes for a good book theme—whether a story is set in modern or historic times.
Yes, you heard me right: the road trip is no modern-day creation; it has, in fact, existed at least as long as devilish lords and intrepid bluestockings took to riding together in carriages . . .
So for those of you tied to your desk this week, here’s my gift to you: a couple of books from some of our favorite authors, all with a road-trip-twist.
Let’s start with Julia London’s contemporary romance The Bridesmaid, in which a road trip is necessary for Kate Preston to make it home for her best friend’s wedding—it’s been called a romantic twist on Planes, Trains, and Automobiles.
For those who dream of road trips a la horse-drawn carriage, there’s Tessa Dare’s A Week to Be Wicked (Book 2 in her Spindle Cove Series), in which confirmed spinster Minerva Highwood and Colin Sandhurst, a rake of the first order, share a very small carriage by day and an even smaller bed by night for a week.
And for those of you who like your road trips with a Thelma and Louise motif, there’s Noelle Adams eBook Road Tripping. Ashley has long nurtured a school-girl crush on her brother’s one-time best friend, Ethan Moore; now she’s stuck with a good-guy-gone-rogue as they share a series of cheap hotel rooms and a stolen car—all while being chased by a series of bad guys. It makes for a crazy two weeks in which Ashley doesn’t know which she may lose first: her heart or her life.
Happy road tripping!
— Jeanne Devlin