Book Review ~ The Road to Tender Hearts – A Bittersweet Journey of Love, Loss and Laughter

Hello everyone, I hope you are all well. Sometimes when everything in life may not be going well you have found the very beginning of the most wonderful journey. The Road to Tender Hearts' by Annie Hartnett is a touching yet comedy strewn story of an elderly man a group of adult children who travel with him including some of his past love stories and a cross-country journey that transforms each character. With the right balance of humor, cringe-worthy scenes and emotional gut wrenching hooks this is a book that tells the story of broken people still being able to put their lives back together.    Book Summary   P.J. Halliday is in his sixties and newly retired and has unexpectedly become very wealthy through a stroke of luck through the lottery. Money has not solved the problems of losing his daughter, his failing marriage and his understanding. With his high school sweetheart now widowed he feels it is time to tell her how he feels about her. Twice, tragedy strikes and before she can get out of the way PJ becomes the guardian of her late brother's two children. With her adult daughter and a strange looking cat named Pancakes PJ embarks on a road trip like no other. On their journey, they meet strangers who are both kind and disruptive, but each character is struggling with their own personal sorrows and hopes for the future.    My Review   This is not just a road trip novel but a story of people coming together after being hurt by life in different ways. The characters in Hartnett's story are both believable and flawed and because of that, they are open to expressing their love and simple acts of courage. And the humor comes through more than once when it's unexpected balancing the grief of loss with the triviality of human connection. I especially liked that the road trip wasn't just a physical one it was a slow messy often funny healing process on an emotional level. This element is complemented by The Darkest Themes of Cats which puts the themes under a more humorous veneer.  The Road to Tender Hearts is bittersweet and that's in the best sense of the word. It's perfect for readers who want to read an emotional story with some quirky charm. If you like novels that reasonably incorporate elements of laughter, sorrow and hope then this is a book worth reading. That's it for today.