I want to age like Constance and go on a travel with someone from my past. I had fun, loved the story and read it in one sitting.
Highly recommended.
Many thanks to the publisher for this ARC, all opinions are mine

'Old age is only a word' Or so they say. Connie, who is turning 70 begins to have doubts about her life, her engagement, her family. So off she sets in her camper van, Ruby. I found it hard not to admire Connie, brave, fearless and determined. I found Alex difficult.
Altogether it was a very readable story and I enjoyed the trip to Scotland.
Thanks to NetGalley for a copy of the book to read and review

I thought this was super cute and relatable. It really makes you think about your life and the things you have been through. I loved the banter and dynamic between the friends and I think it really puts things into perspective of how quickly life can pass us by.

would like to thank netgalley and the publisher for letting me read this book

well i wasnt expecting that.....this book has quite a few surprises in it and its very enlightening

constance fitzgerald is nearing her 70th birthday and life hasnt always been kind to her but she is a free spirit and has thought nothing about packing her van up and going travelling and thats what she has done for most of her life with her son

but now she is about to settle down and get married but life has a few more surprises in store for her

it was an interesting read and very thought provoking and i like the idea of getting into a van and just travelling around exploring the sights and sounds around us....

This is a cute contemporary fiction book about women in their 70's. Friendship, love, and family is what made this book what it is. A nice summer read. Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for this early release in exchange for my honest review.

Well this is a delightful read.
Connie is at a crossroads in her life. At 70 she’s about to be married for the first time, become a grandmother, be made redundant from her job and more seriously give up Ruby her trusty camper van and settle down. A very readable tale, you’ll instantly become invested in her life and I’m quite bereft I’ve now left it.

I was very much attracted to this one by the title; there's a bit more to it than first meets the eye.

Constance has spent her life upping sticks and living where the fancy takes her. Now aged seventy, newly engaged and with her first grandchild on it's way, she considers that it may be time to settle down. Then a chance encounter changes her thinking and she finds herself heading to the highlands to look up an old friend. Will putting the past to rest settle her down - or not?

There are quite a few surprises along the way with this one, and it is an excellent story with bright, vibrant characters. I wasn't quite sure about the timings of some of the road trip though, but it is fiction, after all. An enjoyable read and, for me, 4*.

My thanks to the publisher for my copy via NetGalley; this is - as always - my honest, original and unbiased review.

A feel good novel about two mature women who road trip around Scotland to deliver paintings and resolve some old issues that have nagged at them. Connie's life gets turned upside down when her fiance- her first husband to be- dashes away, she loses her job, and well, things happen. She decides to go see Alex an old friend who has an art exhibit. Things don't always go smoothly for these two but it's often a hoot and the characters are delightful. Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC. A good read.

This is a heartwarming story about relationships (parent and child, mother in law and daughter in law, friends, lovers) and enjoying life in your seventies. I love books like this with older main characters. I loved Connie and wish I could meet up with her and her van. A sequel would be excellent!

Seventy-year-old Constance Fitzgerald gets more than she bargains for when she embarks on a cross-country trip with an old friend in The Golden Girls’ Road Trip by Kate Galley.

At the outset, the future of Constance—Connie to her friends—seems set, with marriage to Leo and impending grandparenthood all in the near future. But dreams of that sensible future end after she accidentally discovers some painful truths. Connie impulsively drives her raspberry red camper van Ruby up to Scotland looking for adventure.

The trip is to see her friend and long-lost love, the painter Alex Mackenzie. Connie hasn’t seen Alex since abruptly leaving when they were both 18. They have much to catch up on, including secrets and recriminations, but first Alex asks Connie to help deliver some paintings up and down the country. Connie and Alex jump into Ruby to get the deliveries done, but Connie has more questions than answers for her friend. In every town they stop in, Connie buys another ball of wool to add to the colourful blanket she’s crocheting for her future grandchild.

These two 70-year-olds are ready for adventure, know their own minds, and are not afraid to say so. The old friends eventually fall into an easy rhythm, as they rediscover why they were such good friends so many decades before.

Long friendships are something special, but being able to fall back into a special friendship after decades apart, is very special indeed. The Golden Girls’ Road Trip takes the reader along for the adventure.

"It's never too late for an adventure"
...

Having previously read and so enjoyed author Kate Galley's debut novel 'The Second Chance Holiday Club', accepting an invitation to read this, her second book, was never in any doubt for me.

However, this storyline story unfolded so seamlessly as I turned the pages and is so heavily nuanced with almost every new change of narrative and dialogue, that giving away spoilers is almost an impossibility, which I can now see is probably why the official 'blurb' is so concise.

So, here is my best shot at convincing you that you really do need to read 'The Golden Girls Road Trip' for yourself...

...

Living in very modest circumstances in Brighton, England, Connie has recently celebrated her seventieth birthday. She has never married and has devoted her life as a single mother, to raising her son Simon, in a loving, if very bohemian lifestyle. Simon has always found life without a father figure slightly unsettling and is now with Diana, wife number three, many years his junior, very unresponsive to having Connie as her mother-in-law and who is now pregnant with Simon's child. Connie herself has recently become engaged to Leo, a widower who on the face of it will provide the gentle stability Connie believes she craves. However, alarm bells are beginning to ring, that Leo may not be marrying Connie for who she is, but for who he wants her to be, an assumption confirmed by Leo's daughter Fiona. Connie realises that she needs to put some distance between herself and Leo, whilst they each decide where their true feelings really lie.

It is at this opportune time that Connie reads an article about reclusive artist Alex Mackenzie, who is holding an exhibition of her paintings, the first for many decades, in her home City of Inverness. For Connie, who knew Alex very briefly from an enforced stay in Scotland at her aunt's hotel, during her teenage years, the memories come flooding back of the fun the two of them had together for that fleeting period of time. However, despite them being the same age and sharing the same birthday, they have never kept in touch during the intervening years, having parted company under something of a cloud, although Alex did gift Connie one of her paintings, one of a pair, the other which she kept herself.

Connie, who has never lost the wanderlust feeling and still owns a rather dilapidated camper van, which is strawberry pink and cream and goes by the name of Ruby, decides on the spur of the moment, to make the trip to Scotland and surprise Alex at the exhibition, without telling anyone where she is going. Alex however, is far from pleased to see Connie, which is not the reception she had anticipated, although, having had a brief fling with a now deceased Lord, Alex seems very well set up and appears to have money to burn. After the sale, a very unresponsive and cold Alex, asks for Connie's help in delivering some of the sold paintings to her favoured customers, who hail from all the far flung corners of the country.

Thus sees the pair embarking on one of the strangest mini road trips ever. After many arguments, with more than a few home truths being aired, much soul-searching by both ladies and nights spent in a variety of accommodation, an uneasy truce has been established. Their journey is however, curtailed before its last port of call, when Connie receives news from Simon that she needs to come home. It seems that Connie isn't the only one who has been adept at being economical with the truth and when Simon confesses all that has been happening behind her back during the last few years, Connie is less than pleased. It takes a forthright Alex to bring Connie to her senses and Ruby is turned back towards Brighton in a mercy dash. One emotional rollercoaster ride for Connie, suddenly becomes two when another crisis piles in and due to work commitments, Simon can't be there for moral support.

The unorthodox situation throws Connie and Diana together and a new understanding is reached between them, so by the time one sad and one happy event have finally sunk in with everyone, it is only then that Connie realises that Alex is no longer beside her, has taken all her belongings out of the van and left. It takes a determined Diana to force the entire truth and full-length story from Connie and with her daughter-in-law status now fully restored and the two of them totally at ease with one another, she sets about finding Alex to reunite her with Connie, exactly where she should have always been. Together at last, Connie and Alex embark on a once in a lifetime road trip of epic proportions.

...

Whilst the storyline was nothing like I had expected it to be, there were so many aspects of it which immediately resonated with me, even though I am still a few years short of Connie and Alex's septuagenarian age and I will certainly never have the courage to 'grow old disgracefully' as they are so intent on doing.

Connie's commitment to her charity shop volunteering, where she has responsibility for keeping the bookshelves stocked and relevant, and the acute pain she feels when she is told that her services are no longer required, because a younger tranche of volunteer is being sought in an effort to change the average age demographic of the customer, is highly personal to me and I can relate to her reactions completely.

Her reconnection with her crochet work, is also a path I trod in an effort to discover a new niche for myself post charity shop era, although Connie's motives are wonderfully unique to her circumstances and her quirky choice of the way forward with the first item she decides to make, highlights her underlying thoughtfulness and resourcefulness, even though she might deny it.

Finally, Connie's relationship with her mother, although distanced and broken down for very different reasons, had a very similar impact and resulted in the same emotionally traumatic consequences for myself as her own. Having been estranged from one another for over 50 years, we are to discover that Connie has not been totally honest with either herself, or her son, about recent gestures of reconciliation her mother has made and her own intransigence at grasping the olive branch which has been held out to her. She has also never told Simon the true reasons for the break down in the mother daughter relationship, which had left the two of them as a self sufficient unit for all of his life.

Connie's rather unconventional lifestyle might be explained by the many 'trigger' points, which are brought to the forefront of the story. The coercive and controlling behaviour her father exerted over her mother, which resulted in her mother being forced to choose which one to favour over the other - father or daughter. That the behaviour of both parents resulted in an excess consumption of alcohol, used as a crutch, which is then echoed down to the present day and manifested in Alex's means of dealing with her own issues. The trauma of sexual assault and rape of a minor by a much older professional person, whose lies are instantly believed as the truth. The taboo of dealing with one's sex and sexuality - All set against a 1970s backdrop, where an instilled morality code reflected attitudes of "Are you absolutely sure that's what happened?"...and "How are we best going to bury this problem before friends and family discover the truth about us?", all so alien to todays open and inclusive culture.

This is a story in four acts - A reconciliation with the past; A realigning of the future; The pain and discovery of the transition from one to the other; The joy of the life-changing journey ahead.

The story is bold and unconventional, multi-layered, well structured and developed. The writing is fluent, poignant and evocative, conveying just the right amount of empathy and compassion. Oh! and there are actually a fair few laugh-out-loud moments, although some of the humour is quite dark and wicked.

As with her debut novel, this story, whilst having a small, diverse cast of characters, is primarily focussed on two ladies of a certain age and I did stop to ponder on how much of what Kate Galley incorporates into her writing, is gleaned from the connections she makes in her day job as a mobile hairdresser. It was just so easy to forget that both Connie and Alex are now septuagenarians, although these days this is almost classed as late middle-age, so why shouldn't a new beginning be possible. Although not in anyway a direct comparison with the successful film 'Thelma and Louise', there are definite overtones in some elements of the multiple genres, which might be described as a drama, adventure or road trip, with elements of a romantic comedy. The characters literally speak for themselves, they are so well-drawn and authentic. The synergy and changing dynamics between them, with the exception of the long established relationship Connie and Simon have, builds slowly over time and whilst they may be a multi-faceted, complex, emotional and at times volatile bunch of individuals, they are also addictive and quite easy to invest in.

As a confirmed 'armchair traveller', I am always looking to be transported to the locations my reading takes me to. So, whilst Connie and Alex only tend to make whistle-stop trips to many of the paces on the route of their mini road trip, author Kate Galley makes full use of her palette of words to paint a visually perfect picture of the physical locations, whilst imbuing an immersive sense of time and place, sights and sounds, which brings the experience to life.

What makes reading such a lovely experience for me, is that with each new book, the individual stories take me on a unique journey of discovery, written by some amazing authors who have the ability to fire my imagination, stimulate my senses and stir my emotions. I can only recommend that read this book for yourself and see where your journey leads you. I have some lovely memories of this story to treasure, thank you Kate!

Another book which would definitely not have been anywhere on my radar, had it not been for the lovely team at publisher Aria Fiction introducing me to this fantastic author. As it is, this book is definitely right up there as one of my favourite reads of 2023 and will take some doing to be beaten. It's 5 stars right across the board from me, for uniqueness of storyline, quality of storytelling, depth of characters and a wonderful mini UK road trip journey.

A really fun story with some harder edges at points. The characters are great and this story is hard to put down while you wait to see what next....

Kate Galley did it again with a second novel that is just as quirky and entertaining as her debut The Second Chance Holiday Club!
Given the protagonists are quite a few years older than me, I picked up this novel thinking that maybe I wouldn't connect to the characters, instead I absolutely love them - including Ruby the campervan.
I do love a good road trip and locations were really scenic and alive with details.
A highly recommended 5 stars read perfect if you are looking for something off the beaten tracks of the genre.

This is the first book I have read by this author and really enjoyed it. It was a great read, well written with strong characters and storylines. Recommend

"It's never too late for one last adventure...
Constance Fitzgerald may be approaching 70, but she's never been one for putting down roots. She's spent her life untethered and free, but when she finds herself newly engaged and a soon-to-be grandmother, Constance is forced to accept it may be time – perhaps – to settle down. Until a chance encounter throws open a window to her past, and Constance decides to head to the Highlands to find an old friend..."

Golden Girls is a show that I watch or listen to daily, so be able to read a book that has similar vibes, yes please!! This was a beautiful story about adventure, love, friendships, and moving forward.

This is the first book I have read by Kate Galley, and I look forward to reading more of her work in the future.
Thank you to Aria & Aries and NetGalley for giving me the pleasure of reading the advance reader copy,

I truly enjoyed reading this book. There is so much within the pages. It is a story of searching, forgiving, becoming free by admitting who you really are, family (both difficult and supporting), and mainly love.

I really like reading books that have older characters (over 60 years) in them. The main characters are both 70 and it is wonderful to experience their lives for a short time. This is a heartbreaking and heartwarming story. I was deeply involved from the moment I began reading and read at every available time until I finished. I miss these people now, and yes, they are people to me now, not just characters in a book.

This is the first book I have read by Kate Galley, and I look forward to reading more of her work in the future.

Thank you to Aria & Aries and NetGalley for giving me the pleasure of reading the advance reader copy, with no obligation to write a review. My review is written freely as a hobby, and is totally my own opinion, not influenced by receiving the ARC.

A lovely, gentle novel snot finding love in later life.

Seventy year old Connie has just got engaged for the very first time. Her son is married to his third wife and they are expecting their first baby. Connie should be happy, but she still yearns for her first love, who she met the summer she turned 18. Before she can settle down to enjoy the rest of her life, she needs to put some ghosts to rest, so sets out for the highlands of Scotland in her old camper van to track down her long lost love.

I loved reading about Connie & Alex’s differing lifestyles and the way they intersected. The author portrays a very vivid picture of grumpy old ladies who are used to doing things their own way!

There are one or two twists and turns in this story but it is a gentle exploration of relationships between lovers, friends, parents and children. The author explores how misunderstandings and unrealistic expectations can fracture relationships, some of which are healed, some left with regrets.

I received a free copy of this book via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

What I like best about The Golden Girls’ Road Trip by Kate Galley is the independent attitude of Connie, the narrator. Connie, who is seventy years old, is active and in good health. She recently became engaged to Leo, a pleasant chap of her own age who is a former colleague of her only child, Simon. This engagement seemed like a good idea at the time, but Connie is not sure what Leo wants from marriage, and the wedding arrangements bore her. Sadly, she does not get along with her current daughter in law, Simon’s third wife, who is expecting her first grandchild. Finding the combination of reluctant bride-to-be and expectant grandmother overpowering, Connie follows her instincts and escapes from Brighton in her ancient campervan, headed for the hills of Scotland.
Connie makes it to the neighbourhood of Inverness and contacts Alex, a friend she remembers from the summer she spent working at a hotel there when she was eighteen. Alex is now a successful artist whose paintings sell at high prices all around the UK. As a result, Connie embarks on a road trip, revisits her youthful self and develops a fresh outlook on her life and loves.
I know some of the places Connie and her companions stop at on their road trip well, and I enjoyed reading about their adventures in familiar locations. Being of advanced years myself, I sympathised with many of the predicaments Connie finds herself in. All of Galley’s characters are well drawn, but I think her fiancé Leo is especially true to life.
I love Kate Galley’s perceptive and positive attitude to women in Connie’s age group. Too often women of seventy and over appear in novels as stereotypes, whereas Galley correctly shows that like everyone else, they have varied personalities and experiences.
Thank you, NetGalley, for sending me a copy in return for an honest review.

This is my first book by Kate Galley and certainly won’t be my last.
I found the storyline very readable with great characters, exploring trials and tribulations and friendships.
Buckle up and enjoy the ride. This is a road trip not to be missed.
Thank you to the publisher and Netgalley for an ARC I. Return for an honest review. It was a blast!

Connie Fitzgerald has just turned 70 and although she's engaged to sensible Leo, something has been missing from her life for the last 52 years.
Connie has a yearning to see what happened to her first love, Alex, and seeing Alex has an art exhibition coming up, she sets off to drive to Inverness in her trusty camper van, Ruby.
I loved, loved, loved this book! What a fabulous story, I didn't want Connie's adventures to end.
Maybe life begins at 70 these days!