Thank you to Netgalley, Goodreads, and the publisher for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

My Selling Pitch:
Do you want an ensemble cast romp of an alien abduction road trip with a smidge of romance?

Pre-reading:
I have not seen Asteroid City. I am a basic bitch. I love Wes Anderson. I am not a sci-fi girlie, but they said romance and they sent me a special PR bubble mailer, so like I’ll read it.

Thick of it:
I feel like this is immaculate publishing time because Wes Anderson is coming out and it’s wedding season

You can’t put Ted that close to Roswell. I will only think of Strangerville in the Sims 4.

A New England girly romcom? Say less.

Javelinas

Romcom mentions serial killers cliché

I can’t believe Truth or Consequences is a real town. Like that’s wild to me.

Exoxenophobia

Forced proximity romcom?

He works for the FBI. Why am I already giddy?

Serena and I would not be friends. I cannot live around that kind of chaos.

Eating airport Mexican is bold.

Never mind, she got chicken and iced tea. She got the whitest thing on the menu. Love her.

Wait, does this mean no rom-com?

Why did we just talk about clouds for that long if they’re not gonna be a plot point? (Samantha your ability to sniff out pointed text never ceases to amaze.)

These phone conversations are so annoying. They keep getting interrupted for no reason.

I could go for a snow cone right now.

I don’t want aliens. I was so excited for this book from the first chapter, and then it just devolved.

This makes no sense. Am I going to have to suspend disbelief all book? (That is a HARD yes.)

How does the alien basically speak English?

Maybe FBI man will come rescue her and it can be enemies to lovers?

What about like find my iPhone or find my friends for her location?

Send a text you lunatic? You can text 911

This is idiotic.

JUST TEXT

Ohhhhh she’s gonna call FBI man and then she’ll end up liking the alien and having to save the alien from him. Like some intergalactic rescue pit bull.

Just give up the alien schtick if you want to get rescued.

Bundy mention

This book is stupid.

How would he see that they’re writing help in the bathroom?

Girlypop, wear it inside out.

This book is so repetitive.

Why is there so much cloud talk in this book? (I like that I noticed it twice and still couldn’t pick up on what the point of it was.)

Grasping language and grammar this fast makes no sense.

He doesn’t know the word yes or no but he knows FBI? Like, come on.

It’s giving Grady Hendrix and Anxious People.

It’s giving that terrible Kindle Unlimited All In romance.

It’s not that I think it’s awful, awful. It’s just that I’m not the target audience for this, and it’s not my style of reading.

Wade is so sus?

I’m kinda hoping Wade is actually the Henry FBI guy from the start and it’s all been some big elaborate setup, but also that’s dumb.

Oh yay, he is. But like oh my god, what a terrible FBI agent.

This book is so repetitive.

I now understand why this book has spent so long talking about clouds. It’s just dawned on me. I’m very stupid, but like oh my godddddd

So they sent you undercover with an entire duffel bag of useless stuff? They couldn’t give you a fucking bottle of water?

This fucking gag with the RV.

Take a shot every time they call it a Western trail wagon.

Klieg

I mean this explanation makes no sense, but go off.

Gantry

That’s not an ending.

Post-reading:
I put this book down and started another one before writing up my review for it and I can’t think of anything to say about it, and if that doesn’t just tell you everything.

It’s trying to be funny. It’s not. It’s trying to do a kooky ensemble cast like Grady Hendrix or Fredrik Backman. It doesn’t really work.

Nothing in this book makes sense. If you’re going to do modern sci-fi, even if it’s gonna be camp as shit, you need to use current technology? They’re still using DVD players. I thought those went extinct. I think if this book had leaned into absurdist camp or gone for satire, it would’ve been better. Social media basically doesn’t exist in this book. Hell, text messages basically don’t exist. The FBI doesn’t believe in weapons.

It plopped an underdeveloped romance into this book. For why? I’m not an alien girlie. I’m not a sci-fi girlie. The romance is the only thing that could’ve saved this book, and it sucked. I genuinely can’t remember if I came off this book thinking that it was a two-star or if it was a one-star, but I can’t remember anything good about it and I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone, so it’s getting a one.

Who should read this:
Campy alien fans
Cozy sci-fi fans

Do I want to reread this:
No

Similar books:
* The Southern Book Club’s Guide to Slaying Vampires by Grady Hendrix-ensemble cast, moms killing Dracula
* Horrorstor by Grady Hendrix-ensemble cast, campy, retail horror
* Anxious People by Fredrik Backman-ensemble kooky cast, heist
* All In by Cassie Cole-Vegas casino heist romance

Unhinged Summary:
Francie travels to Roswell, New Mexico for her hotmess of an ex-roommate’s wedding. Homegirl can’t even pick her up from the airport, so like Francie desperately needs to redefine what she calls a friend. Her old roomie asks Francie to play Uber for another wedding guest, a hottie FBI agent, but his flight gets delayed and she leaves without him. And the audience is like goddamn, the rom-com is over before it even started. Also, there’s like an alien convention going on in the town, so the place is packed with tourists on acid.

Ex-Roomie invented the term hot mess. Nothing is ready for the wedding. Her bridesmaids' dresses are glow-in-the-dark lime green. Also, did I mention her fiancé is obsessed with aliens and that they’re going to have an alien-themed wedding? While they’re checking out the wedding venue, Francie goes to get basic bitch twinkle lights from her roommate’s car to set up the venue. She gets body snatched. Or like in this case, kidnapped by a tumbleweed alien. That’s not me making a joke. He’s literally a tumbleweed with tentacles. The porn writers are salivating.

But this isn’t that kind of book, so it’s going to turn into an ensemble cast road trip of kooky characters. Francie has never seen a movie and has no survival instincts, so she doesn’t text anyone that she’s been kidnapped, and when she does call 911, she tells them that she’s been abducted by an alien. Obviously, they think she’s joking. She leaves a voice mail for hottie FBI agent, and the alien doesn’t care to stop any of this because plot. The alien drives girlypop around because gas and bladders and sleep deprivation don’t exist in this book. Eventually the next morning, they run into a hitchhiker who’s like so hot and not dirty, but he’s definitely a hitchhiker, guys. They pick him up and he’s totally chill with being abducted by an alien. He’s a con man. Now gas exists again because the author needed to move the plot forward, so they need to go stop at a gas station because they’re running out of fuel. These characters once again have no self-preservation skills and they’re like well, let’s try the world’s worst escape plan, and if we get any pushback against that, let’s do exactly what the alien says. No one is worried about starring in tentacle porn, so they end up with another abductee named Lyle whose entire personality is being the absolute worst. He’s an alien conspiracy theorist. And like why am I on his side that he’s the only one showing the correct amount of panic in this situation?

They didn’t get gas at the gas station, so they run out of fuel. The alien fixes the engine so that it can run without gas because plot. The alien also decides to do some desert rock parkour, and Francie is like oh my god, no. He’ll get bitten by a rattlesnake and die. That would only solve all our abduction problems, but like oh my god, we can’t let that happen. She’s a #GoodPerson. So now she and the alien are besties because Francie really needs to see a therapist about setting boundaries, people-pleasing, and defining friendship. And since they’re besties, she’s going to help him get to wherever he needs to go because oh my god guys, he didn’t abduct them all on purpose. It’s not like he knew that was a bad thing to do.

Francie by the way, still in that neon dress, so she’s like we should stop at a rest stop and get some Mcdicks and some real clothes. Somehow the alien agrees to this. The boys go in first and definitely a con man brings back a Hooter’s uniform for her because no one has ever heard of wearing a T-shirt inside out. He also has a duffel bag full of clothes that she could wear, but you know they’re not femme so… Now it’s Francie’s turn to go into the rest stop, and she runs into a little old lady. She sees some mall cops and panics because she’s like oh my god, I must be on the FBI’s most wanted list. They’re definitely here for me and my alien. Paul Blarts could not be fucked, but she’s panicked, so now she’s gonna leave without accomplishing any of her tasks. The old lady follows her to the parking lot where oh my god, the boys and the alien are gone?!

Just kidding. We’ve got at least a half a book left. They’ve now stolen an RV driven by probably Jeffrey Bezos and the alien kidnaps grandma too for some variety. Inside the RV, or the western trail wagon, a running gag throughout the book that wasn’t funny the first time and won’t be funny the 20th time but there is nothing this author loves more than beating a dead horse, the Scooby gang watches old western movies with closed captioning to teach the alien English. This works. Duolingo is absolutely quaking. The family road trip begins. Don’t go chasing waterfalls.

But oh my god, they’ve run out of food. They’re going to have to stop again, but hottie con man is like oh my god, we cannot use credit cards. The FBI would find us immediately. And like I just wanna live in his world where the FBI not only cares that some lunatics stole an RV but have both the manpower and the desire and the capability to track down a single credit card transaction and nab them right away. So obviously, the only solution is to dig through Bezos’ couch cushions for stray gold bars-I mean pocket change and send granny into the casino to double their money. Granny is obviously a hardened professional poker player casino scammer. She makes bank. They hit up a Walmart and buy them out of Doritos. The alien decides it wants to go to Vegas. Then the alien decides Francie and con man need to get married because this book is still clinging to the idea that it has a romantic subplot. They get fake married. Francie finally figures out where the alien is trying to go, but oh no! The FBI have shown up. They all get captured. So sad. Time for the government experiments.

Nay nay, our big 2/3 of the way through plot twist is that oh my god, con man hottie is the same as FBI hottie from the beginning. Don’t worry kids, he’s decided to go against his fellow FBI agents who are like not pissed about the aliens at all (truly, everyone in this book must be on Xanax or something because no one gave a single flying fuck the entire book). He’s like oh my god, I’m gonna help the alien and my ragtag crew escape. So they escape. It turns out that the alien has been trying to track down a thunderstorm for a new season of Stormchasers. (So like actually go chase waterfalls or falling water.) This now explains the many paragraphs where the author waxed poetic about clouds for no fucking reason. Maybe I failed fourth-grade science, but I don’t think lay people just go around knowing types of clouds. His alien buddy is also inside the thunderstorm. Somehow the aliens and their human meat shields collect sciencey data with mystical outer space tinsel. I’m not even trying to be funny. I just genuinely don’t know what happened in this bit of the book. If you can read it sober and let me know, that’d be cool. So like great. Alien secret mission accomplished. The alien, however, is like everyone back on the bus. We’re not done. And we’re like what else is left, bestie? You’re running out of pages?

But we never really find out what was gonna be next because they get surrounded by like probably his alien parents? So now Francie and hottie FBI man and the two baby Tumbleweed aliens are surrounded by elder plant aliens. Yes, the aliens are plants. Yes, the author thinks they’re scary. Just go with it. I wanted to see them raid a garden center’s weedkiller section, but I guess that’s a different book. Somehow the baby tumbleweed aliens teach the elder aliens how to communicate in seconds because plot. Duolingo is now out of business. Also, because they learned English from old Westerns, the aliens talk in old Western slang. This is definitely not annoying at all. Some like intergalactic space trial starts. Apparently, it’s illegal for plants to kidnap humans. Who knew? I guess we’re supposed to be like bonded and invested in our alien besties because they may be an advanced civilization that doesn’t need to fill their cars with old dinosaur juice but they definitely believe in capital punishment. Florida would love them. So Francie and FBI man are like oh my god, you can’t kill our alien besties. They may have abducted us and taken us on a road trip against our will, but like we’re besties now. That’s how friendship works. It’s definitely not Stockholm Syndrome.

And then the FBI shows up, and you would think it’s some violent standoff between the aliens and the government but nope, everyone’s super chill and they’re like well let’s use our words guys. That’s how the US government works. No one brings a single weapon to this. They’re like yeah we can trust the fate of the world in the hands of some civilian. We don’t need to interfere. This kicks off another one of the book’s very lengthy back-and-forth conversations that leads absolutely nowhere and only repeats information.

The aliens decide not to murder their fellow aliens because they got valuable storm data that will let them save their planet. The humans don’t care. They just want the aliens to leave. Yup. Part of the aliens’ deal to leave is that Francie and FBI man must drive the tumbleweed back to his spaceship. Everyone is somehow fine with this. They’re like you don’t need chaperones at all. We’ll just let you go off alone. The alien is like I’ll go home, but you two have to get married first. I want to watch you consummate and/or participate with my tentacles-sorry, different genre. Francie and FBI man are like well, guess we have to get married because the alien can read minds now because plot so he would know if we faked it. Also like I’m in love with you. And they’re like hey alien, thanks for forcing the marriage of convenience trope on us, but we don’t have enough time to drive to Las Vegas and get married before you’re supposed to go home. And the alien is like oh, by the way, I have time travel powers. The end. I’m not kidding. That’s how this book ends. That’s not an ending.

Francie is on her way to her best friend's alien-themed wedding when she abducted. It quickly becomes the weirdest road-trip ever featuring con-artist Wade, conspiracy theorist Lyle, gambling Eula Mae, western aficionado Joseph and Indy the alien who is making this rag tag group drive all over the Southwest. The first half of the book it really entertaining as the author blends plots from westerns with alien invasions, then becomes really boring and predictable in the second half of the book. I was more engaged with the idea that aliens would not look the way they have in movies we've seen and may even be able to blend into our environment. The cunning gambler Eula Mae was a great addition and I enjoyed the scenes where she used her skills to help the group survive. I didn't need a pointless love story thrown in. It's 2023- are we still expecting women to fall in love with men who lie to them? I suppose this book is fine to pass the time with, but I did not enjoy the latter half.

What a silly but humorous story of UFOs, those who fanatically believe in them and the aliens who inhabit them, and those who become believers through abduction or jobs. Especially fun were the movie quotes at the beginning of each chapter.

Thanks to NetGalley and DelRey/Penguin Random House for the ARC to read and review.

Thank you to Netgalley, the publisher and the author, for an ARC of this book, in exchange for an honest review.
The premise of the book drew me in but once I started reading it, I just couldn’t get into it at all.
I wish the author, publisher and all those promoting the book much success and connections with the right readers.

Who knew an alien abduction romance story could be so cute? The human characters were fun and the alien was adorable. This could have been a hundred pages shorter though.

I'm not quite sure how I feel about this book, honestly. For the most part I enjoyed reading it, the book is well written and the world building with the aliens is unique and creative.

However, there just didn't seem to be much beyond driving and talking about conspiracy theories and movies. When they finally figured out what the alien wanted and how to get there, things moved quickly and with an element of deus ex machina. The romantic subplot came out of nowhere and with no build up or even believability. The penultimate chapter felt like it should have been the end, and the final chapter ended with an unfinished feeling. In fact, for a moment, I really thought I had been sent an incomplete copy.

I've always loved Connie Willis's books and The Road to Roswell is right up there with the rest. I can hardly wait for the next one - and hope that isn't the last!!

What a zany adventure! This was a very entertaining read! Who knew that aliens exist? 👽 This cast of quirky characters captured my heart quickly and I rooted for them through all the twists and turns.
Loved the themes of friendship, acceptance, help and commitment that were woven throughout. I highly recommend this book if you are looking for a fun, fantastical and lighthearted reading adventure.

Thank you to NetGalley and Random House Publishing Group- Ballantine for an advanced reader copy in exchange for an honest review.

There is a lot going on in The Road to Roswell. Most of it is lighthearted and fun, bordering on silly. There is a wedding, an alien encounter, a road trip, and much silliness. Things move quickly, and for the most part it is an enjoyable ride.

It’s been a while since I’ve read anything by Connie Willis, and this isn’t how I remember her work. There was always a sense of wonder underlying even the craziest story. Ingenious plot twists, surprising tidbits of history, or intriguing scientific or speculative concepts seemed to be around every narrative corner. The Road to Roswell seems a bit flat. It’s a good story, but without the flair of her earlier work. Readers new to Connie Willis will probably enjoy it more than her longtime fans.

Thanks to NetGalley for providing me with an advance copy to read and review.

I admit I struggled with this book - I liked it fine while reading it but when I put it down I didn’t really feel too much like picking it back up. Took me a long time to get through it and all I can say it was mostly just ok. I didn’t really like the mc - or the hero tbh. The whole alien thing probably didn’t really help as it was trying too hard to be quirky with a weird plant alien that just didn’t really jibe for me. Overall, an ok read but def not my fav by this author. Still, for folks looking for a more whimsical romance with a quirky alien meet cute this would be a great one.

Francie is on her way to her best friend’s wedding—or rather, to stop it, since she’s marrying a UFO-obsessed guy in Roswell. However, she is prevented from doing so when she herself is abducted by an alien who looks like a tumbleweed. In a long journey, trying to discover where the alien tumbleweed needs to go, more humans are roped in and they slowly learn to communicate with the alien. Though the plot dragged at times, this was a funny and clever book, well worth my time.

I’m a big fan of Connie Willis and this is my favorite type of book she writes- madcap adventure with light satire. This time the setting is Roswell, NM during the UFO festival. Francie arrives to her friend Serena's wedding hoping to talk her out of marrying the UFO nut she’s engaged to. But almost as soon as she arrives, she finds out that aliens aren’t made up and she has to help one. And so begins a crazy road trip with Frankie and the alien picking up more people along the way.
I loved so much of this book- great characters, well drawn setting, loads of cultural references, and hilarious dialogue. The alien is a wonderful character and I enjoyed all the attempts at communication.

Some parts were reminiscent of other stories Willis has written like the search to communicate with aliens in “All Seated on the Ground” or elements of “Now Showing”, but recognizing these only added to my enjoyment. The romance wasn’t the central focus of the book and it felt a bit tacked on, but it was cute and sweet. I also thought that the ending was a bit abrupt.

Overall, however, this book was tons of fun and by the time I had read half of it, I had already preordered the audiobook so I could reread it. Highly recommended!

Thank you to NetGalley for the eARC. I am providing an honest and unbiased review.

"roswell or bust. --Bumper sticker"

In the Road to Roswell, Francie travels to (you guessed it) Roswell to be the maid of honor in her bestie Serena's upcoming wedding. Er, at least that's what she told Serena... but in reality she has a side plan to convince Serena to call the whole thing off since Serena's hubby-to-be is one of those crazy "aliens are real and they've landed on US soil" types. So imagine Francie's surprise when she gets kidnapped by an alien that resembles a tumbleweed. From here, adventure and comedy and silliness ensue.

I would expect this book from a new to the scene author, but not from a ten Hugo award winning and six Nebula award winning author. The Road to Roswell is a silly and cute read. I was thoroughly entertained by Francie and "Indy" as the alien was dubbed as they drove around and picked up more passengers/kidnapped more folks along the way. As a reader, I was drawn into the story as the humans tried to figure Indy out - why did he/she kidnap them? Where was he trying to go? Could they figure out how to communicate with him/her? When he/she got scared, what was the cause? And most importantly, how would the whole story end? But I must, say The Road to Roswell had quite a few flaws. The biggest one is characters (Francie in particular) doing things that made zero sense. For example, Why would Francie, a 20-something, call Serena after being kidnapped and give up after getting the message that her voicemail is full instead of just texting her that she was in trouble? Why would Serena, also a 20-something, give Francie information like a flight number and phone number in a conversation rather than just texting it to her? How likely is it, really, that two of the five kidnapped people simply didn't own cellphones? Maybe Willis should fire her editor and get a new one, because a lot of these things seem like stuff a 77-year old lady simply might not know about how 20-somethings today typically behave. But beyond stuff not making sense, there's some glaring plot holes as well, such as when the group agrees not only use cash as to leave no trace via debit/credit cards and pool their money only to realize they barely have enough to get enough food... yet they somehow are able to pay for a wedding? Granted, they did win some money gambling and the wedding was at a quickie Vegas chapel, but it still doesn't add up and paying for the wedding was never even mentioned. Additionally, it's never addressed how Indy can survive in earth's environment of if he needs to eat, drink, or eliminate waste. Granted, we have no idea how aliens (if they exist) survive, but once the group figures out how to communicate with him/her, wouldn't they have been curious enough to ask?

So my TLDR is that this was a cute and fun book... that has a lot of issues.

I’ve never read a book by Connie Willis before. Her books always sounded good, but never really pulled me in enough.
There was something about The Road to Roswell that just intrigued me. I’m glad I picked it up.
It was fun and lighthearted in all the ways I needed it to be.
The only real downside I could think of was near the middle where you were about to start the downward slide into the back half of the book. It seemed to be spinning its wheels for a bit. After that, the end came quickly and with just as much fun as the first half.
I don’t know if I’ll go back and read some of her previous works, but I’m glad I read this one.

2.5 stars. Willis has written a lighthearted sci-fi rom-com that is heavy on action and light on character development. Francie is headed to Roswell, New Mexico, intent on stopping her college roommate's wedding to a flaky UFO enthusiast. In a flash, she's abducted by a tentacled tumbleweed of an alien, who forces her to drive it all over the southwest searching for... what, exactly? Along the way, the alien ("Indy" as it is eventually dubbed) abducts several other co-travelers. As they continue to drive all over the place at Indy's bidding, Francie and Wade (the second of the additional abductees) come around to caring about Indy and wanting to help it with its quest. Zany, preposterous, and frothy, but also really lacking any character development whatsoever, which makes the romance completely unbelievable and unsatisfying, and made it impossible to really care about any of the characters due to their lack of dimension. Connie Willis has long been a favorite author of mine, but this book fell short for me. Thank you to NetGalley and Random House Publishing Group - Ballantine/Del Rey for a digital review copy.

This is one crazy road trip, including an alien who looks like a tumbleweed, an alien-skeptic would-be bridesmaid named Francie who is abducted by the tumbleweed, soon nicknamed Indy, and then four more abductees picked up along the way: Wade, who says he’s a con man selling alien-abduction insurance; Eula Mae, a senior citizen casino scammer; Lyle, a wild-eyed hysterical UFO conspiracy theorist; and Joseph, a man with a big RV and a huge library of DVDs of western movies. The road trip consists of Indy pointing out where the abductees are supposed to take him, which is all over New Mexico and Nevada, with everyone trying to figure out how to communicate and resolve this.

Despite Lyle’s insistence that Indy is going to beam them up and probe them any minute, it seems to the others that Indy is more of an “ET phone home” kind of alien. The road trip takes four or five days of driving around and having misadventures.

The characters are fun, and I liked the premise. A problem I have is one I often have with Connie Willis books: too much time is taken up with frustrating communication problems and other mix-ups that prevent or delay achieving the characters’ goals. If there were less of that and the book lost about 100 pages, this might earn a four-star rating from me.

The Road to Roswell is a road-trip book. It's also an alien abduction book. The alien abducts a handful of people, and forces them to go on a road trip.

Yes, it's as absurd as that sounds. It's also very funny! I was laughing at many of the jokes in here. It's a very cute book, with cozy friendships.

It's very much a road-trip story, with all that entails. Chapters traveling around in the desert. Chapters of getting lost. Chapters of making progressively crazier stops. All inching towards the destination.

What I liked best was that there was that the humans cannot communicate with the alien. It provides some very comical moments, and some more thoughtful ones.
What I disliked most was the romance, which felt very tacked on without much development.

Thanks to Netgalley and Del Ray for a copy of this book to review. All opinions are my own.

This was a very fun and enjoyable read. I enjoyed all of the alien and western movies references, the quirky yet likable characters and the road trip through New Mexico and Nevada. The book had me grinning and chuckling to myself almost the whole time.

The story is told through Francie’s point of view, and she was a delightful character to spend time with. She reacts to getting abducted pretty well, and finds some inner strength to help Indy find what he is looking for. I really enjoyed her interactions with Indy and with the other characters and how she keeps everyone calm and on task, as well as figuring out a way to communicate with Indy.

All of the other characters were fun and managed themselves well. I loved reading all of Lyle’s kooky UFO conspiracy theories and Eula Mae’s unending cheerfulness. Joseph was a hoot as well, with all of his knowledge of western movies and their locations. Wade was also very likable, but I never felt like there was a romantic connection between him and Francie. There were a couple of times when Francie thought romantic things about him, but she was so busy with Indy, it never seemed to last long. I just never quite got the romantic vibe from the two of them.

Indy was certainly the star of the book. I just adored him and all of his quirky ways. It was fascinating watching him learn our language and all of the questions he had about our culture, he really just wanted to understand and for Francie to understand him, so that they could help him. He is my favorite alien by far!

The whole plot of the story was well done with the road trip, Indy abducting people and the whole group working to get communication going between them and Indy. Things got a little slow in the middle, but it was well paced otherwise. I loved some of the descriptions of the scenery and of the lonely places they pass through on their trip. Although I think the time they spent in Las Vegas was my favorite. The ending was a bit abrupt, but it was somewhat open ended, which might mean we will be seeing Indy again.

If you are looking for a quirky and fun book to read this summer, this is definitely one you want to consider. Especially if you enjoy alien conspiracy theories, road trips, the Men in Black and Close Encounters of every kind.

I am grateful to the author, Random House/Ballantine and NetGalley for the opportunity to read and review this ARC.

I’ve been a fan of Ms. Willis throughout her long and distinguished career. This story has her trademark swift action and rather madcap antics from all, including the aliens.

Mostly though, I found this a story of obsession. Who knew there were so many different varieties of alien obsession. . . but I guess there are! Our heroine is watching this strange mental state from outside. Her wonder/confusion is a marvel to behold.

The story itself is not as successful. Ms. Willis sustains the uncertainty about the characters—who is for real, who is a plant, what are their true motivations? The “first contact” situation is handled in a creative manner but is boxed up quickly at the end, feeling rushed. Ms. Willis often ends her novels in a brisk final scene that leaves lots of different potential plot lines moving forward, and this was no exception. Does true love win over all, will the human race find unity in dealing with the aliens? I did find myself hoping that the colorful secondary characters would have a hopeful future second act, whatever their obsessions.

Giving it 3 stars for the action and background on alien sightings, but missing any deeper understanding of our main characters. I will of course dip into any other stories that Ms. Willis may share.

This was a laugh out loud, scifi romcom that I couldn't get enough of. I went in blind not having read anything by this author but I will be getting her full catalog in the future