The Road Before Us: (A Route 66 Novel of Reconciliation and Romance) by Janine Rosche is a beautiful and reflective story about how our past shapes our future, but can also change it if we’re willing to learn from it.
From the back of the book:
How far would you go to fix the mistakes you’ve made and regain the trust you lost? For Jade Jessup, the answer is 2,448 miles.
Once one of Chicago’s significant financial advisors, Jade lost her credibility when her fiancé (and coworker) stole millions of dollars from their clients in a Ponzi scheme. Now she’s agreed to help one of them–an aging 1960s Hollywood starlet named Berenice “Benny” Alderidge–seek financial restoration.
Jade sets off along Route 66 with Benny and her handsome adult foster son, Bridger, who is filming a documentary retracing the 1956 trip that started the love story between Benny and her recently deceased husband, Paul. Listening to Benny recount her story draws Jade into memories of her own darker association with Route 66, when she was kidnapped as a child by a man the media labeled a monster–but she remembers only as daddy.
Together, all three of these pilgrims will learn about family, forgiveness, and what it means to live free of the past. But not before Jade faces a second staggering betrayal that changes everything.
This book was so much fun to read – it incorporated several of my favorite things: history, road trips, The Eagles, references to Disney’s Cars, Route 66, and, of course, learning from what happens to us in life and changing our future.
The characters had heavy situations to deal with from their pasts, situations that required character growth and reflection. I also loved that the book did not shy away from our country’s tougher historical incidents as the trio traveled along Route 66.
The stories from the past were woven seamlessly with the present, and it left me reflecting on my own life, which I believe was the author’s intent. I think it will make you think, too.
Even So, Joy 