EVERY BEAUTIFUL MILE

In Manley’s debut novel, a grieving woman tries to fix her life with a road trip.

Penelope Crawford is paralyzed by her grief over the loss of her charismatic husband, Travis, whose plane disappeared weeks ago. Travis had been a local hero, helping with relief efforts for victims of Hurricane Irma. Over the course of 17 years and the births of two children, they had enjoyed an idyllic marriage—then, “he got in his airplane, flew into a storm, and never came home,” as Penelope often reminds herself. “Travis died and time kept going, but I had stood still.” Now, she works at the family’s Crow’s Nest restaurant in Key Largo and tries her best to parent her teenagers, Marin and Finn, but she is never happy. Her father suggests that she help him refresh the restaurant’s menu by emailing other eateries to learn their sourcing methods. She reaches out to a Maine restauranteur named Ethan Mills, but her heart’s not really in it. When Penelope discovers the extensive rehabbing work Travis had been doing on a creepy camper he’d bought on impulse, she decides to finish the renovation and take her kids on an epic road trip—from the Keys to Oregon to New York and back—to revive her own interest in life. This well-worn road-trip plot is familiar territory, but Manley invests the story with an involving combination of humor and pathos. The author captures the awesome sights the family sees on their adventures and winningly distills them into observations that will resonate with any readers who might feel stuck in ruts themselves: “The people we meet and how they shape us—love us—were the rivers that ran through us,” Manley writes, and readers will hope Penelope’s deepening relationship with Ethan will run strong and clear.

An enjoyably readable and thoroughly heartwarming novel about starting over in life.