posted on October 13, 2015 by Jeanne Devlin

Here’s to the Road Trip Romance

Road TrippingEver 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.)

A Week to Be WickedGiven 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.

The BridesmaidFor 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

Jeanne Devlin

Jeanne Devlin

Jeanne Devlin is editor of The RoadRunner Press, an award-winning traditional publishing house based in the American West. An editor of newspapers, magazines, and books for more than thirty years, she has also worked on national marketing and publicity campaigns with such publishers as Simon and Schuster and St. Martin's and for a number of New York Times bestselling authors, including Robyn Carr, Sabrina Jeffries, Debbie Macomber, Linda Lael Miller, and Wendy Corsi Staub. A graduate of the Stanford University Publishing Course, Jeanne is a member of the Children's Book Council, the National Book Critics Circle, and the Oklahoma Center for the Book of the Library of Congress. She also consults with boutique publishers.

http://www.theroadrunnerpress.com

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