A woman processes her grief and reclaims her life by following a road trip designed by her twins for her and her husband a year after she lost them all to a drunk driver.

Miriam was an up and coming musician and she gave it all up to marry and raise twins. They built a good life serving their church community. When they are all killed by a drunk driver she gets lost in her grief. It isn’t until she improvs a slow version of Johnny Cash’s Ring of Fire during a prominent congressman’s funeral a year after their death that she realizes she needs to change something. When she finds an app the twin teens created for her and her husband to take a road trip once they were empty nesters, she decides to take it on her own. Along the way she picks up a pregnant teenager who has no clue how well Miriam knows what she is going through. Together they build a following on social media, confront some ghosts, and find new life and hope.

This is a beautifully written debut. The dual timeline works well to see where she is and how she got there.

I am thankful for the electronic copy of the book that I received from Net Galley in exchange for an honest review.

DNF due to religious content and suggestions of homophobia. This is due to my personal values and not due to the quality of the writing.

It’s been a year since church music director, Miriam Tedesco, lost her husband and twin teenagers in a tragic car accident. She’s been doing her best to heal from this unfathomable tragedy when an automated delivery of birthday flowers from her dead husband throws her for a loop. After an embarrassing incident during a church service, she decides to take a road trip her twins had planned for their parents before they died. She needs some alone time to reflect on what she’s lost and gather the strength to move on. Because music was such an important part of their family life, she brings along her husband’s guitar, her daughter’s cello and her son’s unfinished piano sonata.

On her first stop in West Virginia, she meets a pregnant teenager named Dicey. A quick lift soon turns into a cautious connection which blossoms into a lovely friendship. Dicey is a great character—smart, spunky and full of life, despite her worrying cough and difficulty breathing. As they make stops across the county guided by the Tedesco twins video app, including Missouri, Iowa, Nebraska, Colorado and New Mexico, Miriam’s concern for Dicey’s health grows. As a doctor, I should have figured out what was going on with Dicey, but I was so drawn into the road trip scenery and the developing friendship that I failed to connect the dots.

Miriam uses her experiences on the trip and her newfound connection to Dicey to process her grief and begin to heal. Basi does a beautiful job incorporating Miriam’s love of music into the story, showing how integral it can be to the healing process. You might think a story about such an unthinkable loss would be a depressing downer, but this lovely debut is tender, meaningful and full of hope. I loved every scenic stop on this unforgettable journey.

A sad read that perhaps I was just not in the right mood for. Unfortunately for A Song for the Road, I had just read Minnie Darke’s The Lost Love Song a few days prior – a book that explored a similar theme of the power of music to bring people together – which I’ll admit could have affected my interest level. The cover of the book is gorgeous, and heretofore I had been absolutely in love with everything I’d read from new book club publisher Alcove Press, so I was saddened I didn’t enjoy this tale more.

The book is essentially a “great American road trip” tale, with two unlikely women becoming friends, sharing music and sights, and meeting new people along the way, each bringing a new perspective to our main character, Miriam. In this way, it will inevitably be compared to the movie Thelma & Louise, as all road trip books about two women are. It was incredibly sorrow-filled, too, because Miriam was embarking on a recently discovered road trip plan, along with musical accompaniment, designed by her deceased twin teenagers who had perished the year before along with their father, Miriam’s husband, And, as she follows their plan, she reflects on her life and the time she had with her family and thinks perhaps she didn’t live it quite right while she could. But how does one get over the devastation of losing their whole family?

A Song for the Road has the added bonus of including a Reading Group Guide, which contains a Q&A with the author, Discussion Questions, a fun graphic/Checklist of Kathleen’s Road Trip Stops. You can preview it at https://alcovepress.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/A-Song-for-the-Road-Book-Club-Kit.pdf. It would have been amazing if the songs played throughout the book were included in this Book Club Kit, but the locations she visits on her road trip are listed, which are pretty neat.

A big thank you to Kathleen Basi, Alcove Press, and NetGalley for providing an Advance Reader Copy in exchange for this review.

#ASongForTheRoad
#KathleenBasi
#AlcovePress
#NetGalley
#GeneralFiction
#ParentingAndFamilies
#WomensFiction
#BookClubs

3.5
Sweet, touching and poignant - A Song for the Road addresses grief, loss and the ways in which we love. Miriam, a widow still struggling with the death of her husband and teenaged twins, embarks on a unique road trip planned by her children. This plot device is so clever and provides opportunity for reflection and adventure while Miriam copes with guilt and loss. I felt for Miriam and was eager to see how her story would progress. The friendship she develops with Dicey is also well developed and worked to illuminate how love can grow in many ways. I enjoyed this one.

I was apprehensive about the book, or rather my experience of it one chapter in. It began with God in the forefront, and I was unsure how the rest of the story would turn out. Surprisingly enough, the concept of faith and its role in sustaining the main characters was done well and not in a preachy way. It was just part of their lives, and that worked out well in the overall picture, without alienating me, a reader with different beliefs.
Once I got past that extremely personal hurdle, the book was unique in the way it dealt with sorrow. It did not have the standard arc of a character learning to come to grips with grief, become a different person, and look at their entire lives in a rosy manner. It was more complicated than just that.
It has been one year since she lost her family, and Miriam is just reaching a breaking point. She loses control and is forced to take some time off to recuperate. How she uses this time comes as a surprise to everyone, including herself!
The emotions that Miriam goes through is so raw that it was hard not to shed a tear or two (or many) with her. There is also the discussion of context and perception when it comes to relationships and how they hold up in the generic idea of what they are supposed to look like. Not all the issues are tied up in a bow, making it more realistic. There is no way that Mariam can be completely happy at the end of the book, but she is starting to find a way to heal, and that is what made this book a great read. I did not go into the individual details of what the title means or the actual events that she faces because they are part of the reading experience, and I would not want to purposefully interfere with that.
This book is not for anyone looking for an uplifting book, although there is growth. The sadder tones are more predominant while it is dealt with. I would therefore ask people to be aware of that fact while going in.
I received an ARC thanks to NetGalley and the publishers but the review is entirely based on my own reading experience.

About the book:

Miriam is a church music director in Atlanta. She lost her husband and teenage twins in a car accident the prior year. Miriam has a lot of guilt. She feels guilty about not being on that trip, guilty about not appreciating her husband’s love, and guilty about having her daughter angry at her right before the accident.

As Miriam is trying to cancel a standing flower order on her daughter’s computer, she finds a program that her kids have put together for Miriam and her husband. This is a cross country road trip for the couple while the teens are at music camp. Miriam decides to honor her family and take the trip.

On Miriam’s first stop in West Virginia, she picks up a 22 year old pregnant hitchhiker named Dicey.

What was supposed to start as a drop off at the bus station, becomes a road trip that Dicey becomes part of.

The ladies travel to obscure locations as Miriam deals with so many emotions about past mistakes and makes decisions on her future.

My Thoughts

This book is a wonderful tribute to family, the kindness of people, the grieving process, and reconciliation.

I love the road trip itself and the people they meet and experiences they have along their route.

I’m not a musician but I appreciate the musical presence that plays such an important role in the book.

My absolute favorite part of this book is Miriam and Dicey’s relationship and how they both grow and change on the trip. I love how these two strangers without realizing what’s happening are making an impact each other.

This book will give you all the feels but at the end of the book I’m left with a sense of peace and that makes me smile.

This book was very emotional for me but also uplifting. It is about love, loss, grief, hope, and learning to carry on. It was beautifully written and brought me to tears at times.
Many thanks to Alcove Press and to NetGalley for providing me with a galley in exchange for my honest opinion.

Kathleen Basi offers us a story about honoring the ones we love and learning to love ourselves in her novel, A SONG FOR THE ROAD(AlcovePress).
It's been one year since Miriam Tedesco's life came to a screeching halt. Her husband and twin teenagers were killed in an auto accident. Then the flowers that come every year for her anniversary arrive. She completely falls apart. Her BFF, Becky is by her side 24/7 and wants to help her move on. Miriam goes into her daughter, Talia's bedroom and opens her computer. She finds an embedded program which her children, Talia and Blaise created for Miriam and her husband, Teo to travel when the kids went off to college later that year.

After watching the video and seeing pictures of her family, she decides to go on the trip to honor her children. Music was the center of the their lives, so Miriam packs her husband's guitar, daughter's cello and son's unfinished piano sonata. She hits the road and embarks on a musical pilgrimage.

Miriam meets a young pregnant hitchhiker name Dicey, who reminds her of Talia. Dicey takes the passenger seat with Miriam and they stop at the obscure places her kids programmed, make music, even encounter a tornado. Her world slowly opens up and she finds herself looking harder at what she had rather than what she lost. But she has a deep secret and realizes the best way to honor her family may be to accept the truths she's never wanted to face.

I found myself laughing and crying while reading A SONG FOR THE ROAD. The book is all about forgiveness, being vulnerable and learning not to beat oneself up, but love. It's wonderful to read and "watch" Miriam heal. I admired her. While reading Kathleen's book, I appreciated that I wasn't proselytized to. That easily could have happened because Miriam and her family are Catholic. Grief is very individual and no one can tell you how to experience it. It's never fully gone, but eventually it has it's place in one's soul and one can move on - never forgetting, but not being emotionally paralyzed.

Miriam lost her husband and teenage twins a year ago and, unsurprisingly, since then she hasn't been able to face any semblance of moving forward with her life. In fact, she's in danger of imploding her career as her beloved church's music director and alienating her friends, and she isn't sure how to cope.

When Miriam stumbles across her daughter's elaborate road trip plan, which Talia created for her then-soon-to-be-empty-nester parents, Miriam feels compelled to take the trip. She brings along her family members' musical instruments, envisioning a sort of musical pilgrimage (this is not at all cheesy and is in fact quite lovely), and she meets unexpected characters along the way, encounters dangerous weather, and begins to come alive again--despite her reservations and guilty feelings about breaking from her dedicated mourning.

Meanwhile Miriam is shouldering the weight of a decades-long secret she had only ever shared with her deceased husband, and issues surrounding the secret threaten to crack her formerly strong resolve to remain silent about the situation.

Basi's descriptions of classical and religious music and of writing music drew me in. She also managed what felt like an incredible feat: the book involves messy feelings and grief, yet the book is not maudlin or sappy despite the tragedy and yearning grief at the book's heart. The tone made me feel confident that things would work out to a satisfying resolution, and Basi delivered, yet events leading up to the end aren't too easy and never felt pat or obvious. The very end felt a little abrupt to me, but by that time I had already become satisfied with the lead-up and the shifts in Miriam's situation, so it didn't bother me.

I admit that based upon the premise, I feared that painfully sentimental tones might creep into the book, but in cases like this I love realizing that I'm incorrect in my Bossy prejudgment. Basi treats the reader with respect and doesn't insert melodrama into an already complex and fraught setup.

I received a prepublication digital edition of this book, published May 11, 2021, courtesy of Alcove Press and NetGalley.

My Instagram friend @angelsmomreads recommended this book to me when I was talking about my Greedy Reading List Six Rocking Stories about Bands and Music, and I'm so glad she did!

Thanks to NetGalley for this Arc!

A Song for the Road tugged at my heart strings to the extreme. Miriam, a church choir director, loses her husband and two teen (twin) children in a car accident. She’s left alone, broken and feeling so guilty. Her daughter created an app to plan a “pick your own adventure” trip for her parents anniversary. Although its hard to know if it’s the right choice Miriam decides to go on the trip. After all there’s nothing for her at home and this brings her closer to the family she lost.

Throughout the trip (which auto uploads her progress to social media) she finds herself doing a lot of soul searching. She picks up a young, pregnant hitchhiker, Dicey. This character adds such a nice dynamic to the story. I think had we be left to only Miriam’s inner dialogue it wouldn’t have landed as well. Also it was so interesting to have these two women at opposite ends in their life build a friendship. Miriam's family isn’t so supportive of her grief, which only adds to her burden. She keeps beating herself up for not being there when her family died as well as constantly reevaluating if she was a good enough mother. Miriam even has to finally face a very heavy secret she’s been carrying.

The trauma this woman faced is almost unbearable. As a married mother of also a boy and a girl I had a little bit of a hard time with this story. I could not even imagine going on with my own life. I’m constantly worried if I’m a good enough mom- so I totally understood Miriam rethinking every minute of her life. Such a sad but thought provoking story. And even though the heart of this book was so heavy Basi managed to make following Miriam's journey enjoyable.

I did not find myself particularly attached to Miriam’s journey. She often felt superficial, and I never really felt like I got to know her. Some of the conversations felt so contrived that I lost a lot of interest. I felt like I had a more general interest in Dicey, but it took forever to get all of her missing pieces, and I generally wanted to like all of it a bit more.

I also felt a little misled because the synopsis mentioned a musical pilgrimage, and I don’t feel like that came through. In my mind, a musical voyage would have to include some significant musically inspired landmarks in the country. This might be nit-picky, but it was clear that Miriam did not have a lot of disposable income, and yet, she visited a few hotels that had a piano. All hotels I have been to that had a piano were generally in a high-end hotel.

Overall, this book was a miss for me.

Thank you to NetGalley, the publisher and the author, for an ARC of this book, in exhange for an honest review.
"A Song For The Road" by Kathleen Basi was the author's debut novel.
I enjoyed reading this book.
I found it to be a touching story about loss, grief & love.

𝕴𝖋 𝖞𝖔𝖚𝖗 𝖍𝖊𝖆𝖗𝖙 𝖎𝖘 𝖆 𝖛𝖔𝖑𝖈𝖆𝖓𝖔, 𝖍𝖔𝖜 𝖘𝖍𝖆𝖑𝖑 𝖞𝖔𝖚 𝖊𝖝𝖕𝖊𝖈𝖙 𝖋𝖑𝖔𝖜𝖊𝖗𝖘 𝖙𝖔 𝖇𝖑𝖔𝖔𝖒?
Khalil Gibran.

#booktour #preordernow
Releases 11th May 2021

🦜“𝘐𝘯 𝘢 𝘯𝘰𝘷𝘦𝘭 𝘧𝘪𝘭𝘭𝘦𝘥 𝘸𝘪𝘵𝘩 𝘮𝘶𝘴𝘪𝘤, 𝘩𝘦𝘢𝘳𝘵𝘣𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘬, 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘴𝘶𝘳𝘱𝘳𝘪𝘴𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘭𝘢𝘶𝘨𝘩𝘵𝘦𝘳, 𝘉𝘢𝘴𝘪 𝘵𝘢𝘬𝘦𝘴 𝘶𝘴 𝘰𝘯 𝘢 𝘫𝘰𝘶𝘳𝘯𝘦𝘺 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘦𝘯𝘤𝘰𝘮𝘱𝘢𝘴𝘴𝘦𝘴 𝘣𝘰𝘵𝘩 𝘶𝘯𝘪𝘮𝘢𝘨𝘪𝘯𝘢𝘣𝘭𝘦 𝘭𝘰𝘴𝘴 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘱𝘰𝘸𝘦𝘳𝘧𝘶𝘭 𝘳𝘦𝘴𝘪𝘭𝘪𝘦𝘯𝘤𝘦 𝘰𝘧 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘩𝘶𝘮𝘢𝘯 𝘩𝘦𝘢𝘳𝘵. 𝘈 𝘣𝘰𝘰𝘬 𝘤𝘭𝘶𝘣 𝘮𝘶𝘴𝘵 𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘥.” —

💔𝘼 𝙧𝙚𝙖𝙙 𝙬𝙝𝙞𝙘𝙝 𝙬𝙞𝙡𝙡;
-𝙢𝙖𝙠𝙚 𝙮𝙤𝙪𝙧 𝙝𝙚𝙖𝙧𝙩 𝙨𝙬𝙚𝙡𝙡 𝙤𝙫𝙚𝙧 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙖𝙙𝙤𝙧𝙖𝙗𝙡𝙚, 𝙘𝙡𝙤𝙨𝙚-𝙠𝙣𝙞𝙩 𝙛𝙖𝙢𝙞𝙡𝙮 𝙤𝙛 𝙏𝙚𝙤, 𝙏𝙖𝙡𝙞𝙖 & 𝘽𝙡𝙖𝙞𝙨𝙚..
-𝙬𝙞𝙡𝙡 𝙢𝙖𝙠𝙚 𝙮𝙤𝙪 𝙜𝙧𝙖𝙨𝙥 𝙛𝙤𝙧 𝙖𝙞𝙧 𝙬𝙝𝙚𝙣 𝙈ira 𝙣𝙖𝙧𝙧𝙖𝙩𝙚𝙨 𝙝𝙤𝙬 𝙨𝙝𝙚 𝙡𝙤𝙨𝙩 𝙝𝙚𝙧 𝙗𝙚𝙖𝙪𝙩𝙞𝙛𝙪𝙡 𝙛𝙖𝙢𝙞𝙡𝙮, 𝙖𝙡𝙡 𝙞𝙣 𝙤𝙣𝙚 𝙜𝙤..
-𝙬𝙞𝙡𝙡 𝙢𝙖𝙠𝙚 𝙮𝙤𝙪 𝙙𝙬𝙚𝙡𝙡 𝙤𝙫𝙚𝙧 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙪𝙣𝙘𝙚𝙧𝙩𝙖𝙞𝙣𝙩𝙮 𝙤𝙛 𝙡𝙞𝙛𝙚 & 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙢𝙚𝙢𝙤𝙧𝙞𝙚𝙨 𝙤𝙛 𝙡𝙤𝙨𝙩 𝙡𝙤𝙫𝙚𝙙 𝙤𝙣𝙚𝙨..
-𝙬𝙞𝙡𝙡 𝙗𝙧𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙤𝙪𝙩 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙜𝙪𝙞𝙡𝙩 𝙞𝙣 𝙮𝙤𝙪 𝙤𝙫𝙚𝙧 𝙧𝙚𝙡𝙖𝙩𝙞𝙤𝙣𝙨𝙝𝙞𝙥𝙨 & 𝙨𝙚𝙘𝙧𝙚𝙩𝙨 & 𝙬𝙧𝙤𝙣𝙜𝙙𝙤𝙞𝙣𝙜𝙨..
-𝙢𝙤𝙨𝙩 𝙤𝙛 𝙖𝙡𝙡, 𝙩𝙝𝙞𝙨 𝙧𝙚𝙖𝙙 𝙬𝙞𝙡𝙡 𝙝𝙚𝙡𝙥 𝙮𝙤𝙪 𝙝𝙚𝙖𝙡..𝙘𝙤𝙢𝙚 𝙤𝙫𝙚𝙧 & 𝙖𝙗𝙤𝙫𝙚 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙡𝙤𝙨𝙨 𝙤𝙛 𝙖 𝙡𝙤𝙫𝙚𝙙 𝙤𝙣𝙚..𝙜𝙞𝙫𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙮𝙤𝙪 𝙖 𝙧𝙚𝙖𝙡𝙞𝙩𝙮 𝙘𝙝𝙚𝙘𝙠 & 𝙥𝙪𝙨𝙝𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙮𝙤𝙪 𝙩𝙤𝙬𝙖𝙧𝙙𝙨 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙡𝙞𝙛𝙚 𝙩𝙝𝙖𝙩 𝙖𝙬𝙖𝙞𝙩𝙨 𝙮𝙤𝙪 & 𝙡𝙚𝙩𝙩𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙜𝙤 𝙤𝙛𝙛 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙞𝙣𝙫𝙞𝙨𝙞𝙗𝙡𝙚 𝙨𝙩𝙧𝙞𝙣𝙜𝙨 𝙩𝙝𝙖𝙩 𝙝𝙖𝙫𝙚 𝙗𝙚𝙚𝙣 𝙝𝙤𝙡𝙙𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙮𝙤𝙪 𝙛𝙤𝙧 𝙨𝙤 𝙡𝙤𝙣𝙜..
-𝙞𝙩 𝙬𝙞𝙡𝙡 𝙖𝙡𝙨𝙤 𝙧𝙚𝙞𝙩𝙚𝙧𝙖𝙩𝙚 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙝𝙚𝙖𝙡𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙥𝙤𝙬𝙚𝙧 𝙤𝙛 𝙢𝙪𝙨𝙞𝙘.

🦜“𝘈 𝘮𝘶𝘴𝘵 𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘥! 𝘉𝘢𝘴𝘪’𝘴 𝘪𝘯𝘴𝘪𝘨𝘩𝘵𝘴 𝘪𝘯𝘵𝘰 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘩𝘶𝘮𝘢𝘯 𝘦𝘹𝘱𝘦𝘳𝘪𝘦𝘯𝘤𝘦 𝘮𝘢𝘬𝘦 𝘈 𝘚𝘰𝘯𝘨 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘙𝘰𝘢𝘥 𝘢𝘯 𝘶𝘯𝘧𝘰𝘳𝘨𝘦𝘵𝘵𝘢𝘣𝘭𝘦 𝘫𝘰𝘶𝘳𝘯𝘦𝘺. 𝘚𝘩𝘦 𝘪𝘯𝘵𝘳𝘰𝘥𝘶𝘤𝘦𝘴 𝘶𝘴 𝘵𝘰 𝘭𝘪𝘧𝘦, 𝘭𝘰𝘴𝘴, 𝘭𝘰𝘷𝘦, 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘳𝘦𝘴𝘶𝘳𝘨𝘦𝘯𝘤𝘦 𝘰𝘧 𝘩𝘰𝘱𝘦—𝘴𝘩𝘦 𝘪𝘯𝘵𝘳𝘰𝘥𝘶𝘤𝘦𝘴 𝘶𝘴 𝘵𝘰 𝘰𝘶𝘳𝘴𝘦𝘭𝘷𝘦𝘴. 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘣𝘦𝘢𝘶𝘵𝘺 𝘰𝘧 𝘩𝘦𝘳 𝘱𝘳𝘰𝘴𝘦 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘢𝘥𝘷𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘶𝘳𝘦 w𝘪𝘭𝘭 𝘭𝘪𝘯𝘨𝘦𝘳--

ALL THE STARS for this beautifully told emotional story!

Kathleen Basi’s debut hit me right in the feels and uplifted my heart. This is the story of one’s women’s journey through grief, simultaneously heartwrenching and hopeful. Miriam Lost her husband and twin teenagers a year ago. She thinks she is handling the unimaginable grief rather well until she receives a bouquet of flowers that had been pre-arranged to be sent every year on her anniversary from her dead husband. The bouquet cracks Miriam‘s fragile resolve and resolves in her realizing that she needs to start truly living again. Miriam knows that in order to start living she needs to start healing and that begin with accepting. This leads to Mariam finding a road trip app developed by her daughter for Miriam to take with her husband as they become empty-nesters. Seeing her children on video sparks something in Miriam and she decides to set off on the road trip on her own.

Miriam is a complicated character living through the unthinkable. I felt so much for her and I saw so many little pieces of myself in her. Her grief and guilt were palpable, but so was her Hope and strength. As much as this was a story of grief it was also a story about forgiveness and grace. As a woman and as a mother I completely empathize with Miriam throughout the story. The road trip was great and added the perfect backdrop to the story. I also really love the concept of this app where you flip a coin that determines where you go on your trip next. Along Mariam‘s trip she picks up a passenger Dicey who adds the perfect balance to the story. A multi layered gorgeous story that I cannot recommend highly enough.

This book in emojis 🎼 📱 🎹 🛣

*** Big thank you to Alcove Press for my gifted copy of this book. All opinions are my own. ***

A Song for the Road started with much promise but I found myself getting disinterested as I kept reading. The premise was better than the execution IMO.

Miriam Tedesco, a choir director and pianist in a Catholic parish church in Atlanta, Georgia just got sent flowers by a ghost. There begins how her life starts to unravel.

Her husband never misses an anniversary and just like clockwork, the bouquet of flowers arrive. But it’s been a year since the tragic day when Miriam lost her husband and her twins.

As she starts to clean out her children’s belongings she finds an app for a road trip that her children Blaise and Talia prepared for her and husband as an empty nest present. Hearing her children’s voices on the video app as they plan out the trip, motivated Miriam to take that trip to honor her family. While on the road, she picks up a pregnant woman named Dicey who becomes her companion as they trek out heading west. together they traverse tornadoes, some impromptu musical reveries, and form a bond of friendship to last a lifetime.

The writing is so beautiful and fully immersive as you follow along Miriam’s journey to obscure landmarks throughout the country that had me googling these places.

I love that the story background is about music and instruments. Both my teens play instruments - the bass, viola, violin, guitar and piano, and also compose music, so I really related very much to that part of the story and really enjoyed it in this book.

But more than that, this poignant novel is a moving story about a woman’s grief, the strength and courage to face the truth and unearthing long buried secrets, while moving forward and honoring the memories of loved ones.

Such a well written book I highly recommend!

I really enjoyed this cute story of greif,  friendship,  adventure, courage while moving forward and healing. I also enjoyed the music aspect of the plot and how they  use the music as part of the healing  process.  I loved the underlying message of even if you are stuck by tragedy, you still deserve to be happy and live your life to the fullest.

We follow Miriam Tedesco, a pianist and choir director in Atlanta Georgia. Her husband never missed an anniversary, and just like this day ever other year a bouquet of flowers arrives for Miriam. This is when her life begins to unravel, as its been a year since she tragically lost her twins and husband.  As Miriam trys to deal with her greif she finds an app for a road trip that her children had originally made for her and her husband.  Miriam decides she needs to go on the trip. After the first stop on the trip, Miriam  picks up a pregnant woman,  Dicey who is heading out west.  Miriam and Dicey journey to the apps locations and experience some truly unique experiences together as they form a life long friendship.

Thank You NetGalley for the access to this book


I have so mixed feelings with this book it has a tone of religious and sort of homophobia in it that let me uneasy and it takes something away from the book that itself is really interesting and powerful and so emotional.

The protagonist is a widow and also lost her kids, one day she realized that her daughter had prepared her (them but her husband die so is just her) trip with things to do once her kids moved out of the house, and this trip helps her heal with the pain of her loved ones lost.

I recommend it to you if you are into this kind of story

A Song for the Road is such a special book. The premise is intimidating - - you find out that the main character is not only a widow, but also a grieving mother.. To lose your entire family in one moment is unimaginable. Instantly, I was emotional. Then to see how Miriam doubts if she was ever worthy of her family is even more heartbreaking.

It's a year after her loss and Miriam is struggling. She discovers a cross-country "flip a coin" roadtrip on her daughter's computer. Apparently, her teenage twins designed it for her to take with her husband, Teo. Miriam decides that to honor them all, she is going to take the trip by herself. She downloads the app, borrows a friend's car, packs an unlikely suitcase full of her daughter's clothes, packs her husband's guitar and daughter's cello and sets off on this adventure. She hopes to find some closure to her loss and feels like it's something she can do in tribute for them all.

It's hard to put into words just exactly how touching this story is. It isn't an easy read because Miriam's grief and self-doubt are very palpable. However, along the way she meets Dicey, a teenage girl who is pregnant and trying to get home. Miriam agrees to drive her part of the way, but they become so attached that it just feels natural to keep Dicey with her for longer. The friendship that develops between these two was just what they both truly needed.

Overall, I'd say this book helps you to see that love comes in many forms, everyone expresses love differently and to do your best to live life fully. It also demonstrates how hard women are on themselves. We expect to be perfect and always think we are failing someone. The most difficult relationships can often be between women and their daughters or mothers - - yet those relationships are also some of the most precious.

Thank you to NetGalley for this ARC. I voluntarily chose to review it and the opinions contained within are my own.