Rolling Toward Clear Skies by Catherine Ryan Hyde

Dr Maggie Blount is a GP and divorced mum to two teenage girls. As part of her voluntary work for Doctors on Wheels she treats two teenage sisters and their puppy following a hurricane, and subsequently fosters them. The two sets of sisters could not be more different and Maggie and her partner Alex are in for a rough ride!

I absolutely loved this book - the characters, the settings and the story... all fabulous! I could have lived without the bits about seeing/sensing other people's emotions but it's a very minor point because I still really loved it and it wouldn't stop me reading other books the author has written. Very VERY highly recommended.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an ARC of this book.

Rolling Toward Clear Skies by Catherine Ryan Hyde is another one of her signature novels. Somehow this author finds a way to help people see other parts of life in an uplifting way, by allowing her characters to grow and change. In this novel, two teenage girls are given everything and anything while two other teenage girls are given nothing and have had to scrape for everything. All four girls are suddenly together in the same family.

Maggie and Alex own Doctors on Wheels. With some trusted others, they respond to emergency situations and help supply medical attention during disasters. While dealing with the aftermath of a hurricane in Louisiana, they find two teenage girls and a puppy left on their own. Maggie agrees to foster and then adopt them, knowing her two teenagers from a prior marriage were not going to be accepting. Maggie hopes that this choice she is making will help both sets of girls become better people. A pipe dream with a curious method to help both.

The story held my attention the entire way through. I pretty much read the book in a day around errands. I enjoyed the characters, although I felt the author made the dichotomy more distinct to help draw the lines between them. Catherine Ryan Hyde’s books always look for and find the best in people. Her stories, while do not end perfectly, they do end perfectly enough for the reader to go ahhh. Rolling Toward Clear Skies by Catherine Ryan Hyde is a really good read.

Rolling Towards Clear Skies is a novel by award-winning, best-selling American author, Catherine Ryan Hyde. When California physician Dr Maggie Blount heads to Louisiana with the Doctors on Wheels bus, the brain-child of her partner, RN Alex Anderson, to provide free medical service in the aftermath of Hurricane Mina, she’s not expecting to return home with an emaciated puppy, let alone two recently-orphaned teenaged sisters.

“Am I crazy, Alex?”
“Absolutely yes,” he said. “But in a very high-quality way.”

Upon learning that she and Alex plan to foster the girls, her own similarly-aged teen daughters decamp to their father’s home, and Maggie is upset, but unwilling to yield to their emotional blackmail. As she welcomes Jean Bradshaw and her younger sister, Rose, and the pup, Sunny, into her home, she continues to notice how these polite, grateful and considerate girls are the polar opposites of her own spoiled, entitled and selfish daughters.

Maggie is prepared to own the responsibility of producing two such teens: she has always given them everything they wanted and, perhaps by being away with Doctors on Wheels, has neglected their upbringing, but when they eventually return home, their resentment is plain. She warns Willa and Gemma that she expects them to be at least civil and gracious in their interactions with the two Louisiana girls. They often aren’t.

The difference in attitude is highlighted even more when, during the summer school break, Jean and Rose want to accompany Maggie and her team to the site of a wildfire and make themselves useful in many ways despite their anxiety about the nearby fire, while Willa and Gemma enjoy the air-conditioned comfort of their own home.

But then something happens to show Willa and Gemma that fewer people than they expect agree with their entitled attitude. Is this rude social media shock enough to bring harmony to this expanded family? Certainly, the reaction of the Louisiana sisters to it all helps things along.

Ryan Hyde aways manages to give the reader relatable dilemmas, to tug at the heartstrings, and to give her characters wise words and insightful observations:

The therapist with whom she shares her parenting doubts tells her “People who aren’t able to recognize incompetence in themselves never worry. They just figure they’re doing great. Which may explain why they’re not. They never hold their own feet to the fire to do better. People like you keep holding yourself to a higher standard. That’s a good sign” (an observation that could easily apply to a certain presidential candidate…), and

Maggie’s mother, known to all as Grandma Bess, having met Jean and Rose, notes, “They’re what we used to call do-gooders. Nowadays you hear people saying that word like it’s a bad thing, and I’ll never in a million years understand that. Why would you make a person out to be wrong for doing good? It makes no sense.”
“If you’re not doing good yourself you’re going to want to take shots at the people who are. It’s easier to make them wrong than to change yourself.”

Ryan Hyde's latest is topical, has multi-generational appeal, is thought-provoking, moving and uplifting. Whatever she writes is eagerly anticipated.
This unbiased review is from an uncorrected proof copy provided by NetGalley and Lake Union Publishing.

Rolling Towards Clear Skies" is a classic Catherine Ryan Hyde feel-good story that truly delivers. The narrative explores themes of family, blended families, privilege, entitlement, jealousy, and gratitude.

Dr Maggie and her partner, RN Alex volunteer with a charity called Doctors on Wheels, assisting those affected by natural disasters. After helping in the aftermath of a hurricane, they meet teenage sisters Jean and Rose, who have been orphaned by the storm. Maggie forms a deep bond with the sisters, who are remarkably sweet and appreciative of every kindness shown to them. This connection prompts Maggie to reflect on her own daughters, Willa and Gemma, who exhibit a sense of entitlement that makes her question her parenting choices—she never wanted them to feel deprived.

When Maggie brings Jean and Rose home, tensions flare, and Willa and Gemma initially move out to live with their father, feeling replaced and resentful of the new arrivals. Over time, the girls must learn to coexist, and their interactions ultimately lead to growth for everyone involved.

While some elements of the story feel a bit unrealistic and Jean and Rose appear almost too perfect, given their traumatic experiences, this did not diminish my enjoyment of the story.

I always enjoy books by Catherine Ryan Hyde and usually learn a lesson while reading. In Rolling Toward Clear Skies, we encounter issues with parenting, step-parenting, teenage entitlement issues, fostering and adopting children, volunteerism, and more!
While this wasn't my favorite book by the author, It is one I would recommend.

Doctors on Wheels! You couldn’t ask for a timelier fictional humanitarian group considering the devastating hurricanes and tornadoes that have ravaged the southern and southeastern sections of the United States and elsewhere this fall. It is the creation of author Catherine Ryan Hyde in her novel, Rolling Toward Clear Skies. The group is small; it was created by a registered nurse named Alex, his romantic and his professional partner, Dr. Maggie Blount. They travel to disaster sites in an RV stocked with food and medical supplies. When they reach the site, they are met by a retired couple, Drs. John and Lacey Bishop. There are also several staff who support the team, as well as local officials.

When a Category 5 hurricane strikes Louisiana, Maggie and Alex gather their belongings and prepare for their long drive from their comfortable home in California to the devastated area in Louisiana. Before they leave, Maggie arranges for the girls to stay with their dad while she and Alex are away. The girls, 14-year-old Gemma and 16-year-old Willa, are difficult, to say the least. Maggie blames herself, in part, for spoiling them and for not being there as much as they needed her to be following the divorce. While their situation may have been understandable initially, these two are hard to take!

Once they arrive at the clinic site, the three doctors and Alex get to work treating the injured. People are shocked to learn that their care is free. When a pair of sisters arrive, sick with pneumonia and seemingly reluctant to talk about their family, Maggie grows concerned. She’s grown fond of the girls - quiet Rose and more outgoing Jean, who are such a contrast to her own daughters. They are polite, respectful, and grateful, everything Gemma and Willa are not. When she sees shy, introverted Rose feeding pizza to a skinny stray puppy, Maggie’s heart melts. After a team returns from searching for the parents and reports that the girls’ parents have been found dead, Maggie contacts the social worker about what comes next for the girls.

This eventually leads to a blended family, which results in all sorts of chaotic feelings all around. It felt like there were two extremes at times between Maggie’s birth daughters and her adopted daughters, with Maggie caught in the middle. More often, seemingly, Rose and Jean act more mature and more accepting of the other girls, despite the way they act toward them. Alex, for the most part, tries to stay out of the fray, unless Maggie specifically asks him his opinion or feelings. It takes an event where the “you-know-what” hits the fan for real change to begin. Thankfully, all the females are willing to participate in therapy!

Overall, it felt like Ms. Hyde presented this scenario in a way that portrays the inner conflicts a blended family of teenagers might endure and evolve, especially given their vastly different backgrounds, social status, and experiences. The characters may be a bit overdone – the biological daughters overly selfish and mean and the adopted daughters overly sweet and accommodating – but I especially loved Rose and Jean’s reactions to the swimming pool and the ocean and other aspects of their new life. They were so appreciative! Once again, Catherine Ryan Hyde, you have created a tale with wonderful characters who could be real! And they make us feel something.

I received a digital copy of Rolling Toward Clear Skies in return for my honest review. Thanks to NetGalley, Lake Union Publishing, and Catherine Ryan Hyde.

I always love a great book by Catherine Ryan Hyde. She's a fantastic storyteller and this was a delight to read. Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for this advance copy in exchange for my honest review.

Rolling Toward Clear Skies is a story of hope, forgiveness, and new beginnings. It also touches on the emotions and stereotypes that are involved with fostering, adopting older children, and creating a blended family. The characters were strong and likable (even Maggie's entitled bratty teenage daughters will grow on you). This book makes you think about life and how real some situations in this story could be.

Dr. Margaret "Maggy" Blount is a divorced mother of two very spoiled teenage daughters, Willa 16 and Gemma 14. Her boyfriend, Alex is a RN who works with her and is also her boyfriend. Alex founded a mobile medical unit that visits disasters and treats injured people with no charge and Maggy goes with him. After a recent hurricane, they visited the area and she treated two teen-age girls for pneumonia, Jean and Rose, who were the same age as her daughters but total polar opposites in terms of personalities and social status. Jean and Rose's parents drowned in the disaster and with no family other than very elderly grandparents, Maggy decides to adopt the girls. Maggy's daughters are not happy at all with the plans and show their true personalities. This is a great story of trying to blend a family and all the trials and tribulations that go along with trying to make it work.

Thank you NetGalley and Lake Union Publishing for the ARC of this very heartwarming book.

4 stars

Geez, I love this author. I just love her. She has written over 40 novels, and I hope someday to be able to say I’ve read them all. For now, I read 2-3 per year and savor the experience while trying to make them last for years to come.

I love how she fills her tales with poignancy, unconditional love, and understanding. In terms of specifics, each story is very different, but again, the underlying themes are all along the same lines. They read fast, they’re loaded with feelings and are full of hope.

In Rolling Towards Clear Skies, Dr. Maggie Blount and her significant other Alex, who is an RN, are part of a small group called Doctors on Wheels. When the need arises, they hop into a couple of RVs and head to disaster areas to administer free medical care. During a mission to Louisiana to help those affected by a category 5 hurricane, they encounter two sick teenage sisters and a stray dog who have nowhere to go. They are lovely, respectful and kind girls—polar opposites of Maggie’s own two spoiled, sullen teenage daughters at home. Maggie somewhat impulsively decides to adopt the two orphans, which leads to all sorts of seemingly unresolvable issues at home.

The predicament in this novel seemed to me nearly impossible to solve so I was flipping the pages like mad to see how it would all shake out. And shake out it did with typical Catherine Ryan Hyde wisdom. With themes of privilege, entitlement, jealousy, gratitude, and ultimately understanding, forgiveness, and second chances, all in the face of keeping it real, Rolling Towards Clear Skies (with all of its meanings) was a super satisfying and meaningful read for me.

Many thanks to Catherine Ryan Hyde, Lake Union Publishing, and to Net Galley for granting me an advanced review copy. Opinions are mine alone and are not biased in any way.

I loved this book so much!! Maggie is a doctor and her boyfriend Alex is a nurse. Alex started a charity called doctors on wheels that Maggie, Alex and two other doctors to help whenever tragedy strikes. When they travel to Lake Charles Louisiana they meet two girls who are very sick and lost both of their parents in the hurricane. Maggie forms a bond with these two teenagers and decides to become foster parents to then and then ends up adopting them. Her two teenagers at home are less then thrilled with this idea. Maggie preserves though to bring her family together. I always love Catherine's characters but these I'm especially fond of. We adopted two boys and so this book hit close to my heart! One thing I didn't like (and it was minor) was even after Maggie adopts the foster girls she keeps referring to them as foster sisters whenever she's talking to her natural born daughters. I wish she would just call them sisters since they were now adopted. If I could give this book 6 stars I would! Seriously loved it!

Nowadays, when I see a new title by Katherine Ryan Hyde coming available for reviewing, I jump to it. It’s as if I known this author for decades… but I found out that’s not true. I’ve only read a handful of titles from her, beginning in 2022.
Isn’t his strange but great? When an author really touches you and you feel like you’ve know her for so long? I absolutely love it. What I like first and foremost is the fact that she writes such very different books about such very different subjects. And even though these subjects are not always what I usually like to read, I just have to finish the story.
This time, it’s about a mother who more or less to her own astonishment discovers that her teenage daughters Willa and Gemma, sixteen and fourteen, are in fact very unlikable people. They are very self-centred, rude and mean to almost everybody except when they stand to gain something from them. For Willa, it is unbelievable cruel of her mother Maggie to not have given her a car for her 16th birthday. All her friends got a car when they turned sixteen! Not only that, her mother uses her money to help other people! People who’ve barely survived disasters and are left with nothing but the clothes on their backs. How could she…
Where I live its just not possible to own and drive a car at sixteen, let alone demand your parents to give you one, but for ‘car’ you can read any outrageous expensive present. And so it goes on and on. So when Maggie returns from one of her missions one day with two other teenagers, who are polite and friendly and don’t spend all their time on their phones (because they have no phones after their house burned down) but rather take care of their new found dog, all hell breaks loose.
Maggie feels that she’s to blame for everything and wants nothing more than to repair what’s broken, and form a happy family with her four daughters and her new husband. This story tells how she’s going to try and achieve that.
The characters were perfect although sometimes a little bit too perfect in their role. Not a bad word from Jean and Rose, nothing nice from Willa and Gemma until later in the book. Maggie who feels she’s the only one who made all the mistakes in parenting and so she blames herself for everything. A little too black-and-white to my taste, and at the end somewhat too mushy and overdone but guess? Almost unputdownable!
I’m already looking forward to Ryan Hyde’s next title
Thanks to Lake Union Publishing and Netgalley for this review copy.

Another win for Catherine Ryan Hyde! Her books always have a warm quality to them and this one is no exception. Seeing the girls learn from each other and grow was a large part of the book, and an important one. Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for the ARC.

Wow Catherine Ryan Hyde did it again! Another great book. All of her books are different and I have loved every one of them. I read this in 2 days. You won't be able to put it down.

Alex, a registered nurse, and Dr Margaret ‘Maggie’ Blount run Doctors on Wheels, along with a doctor couple, John and Lacey Bishop. The four voluntarily head out to areas affected by natural calamities, and offer medical aid to those in need, without charging a cent.

During one such trip to Louisiana, the site of a hurricane, Maggie treats two newly orphaned sisters, 16-year-old Jean and 13-year-old Rose, who are suffering from pneumonia. She finds herself drawn to the two girls and chooses to take them home.

Predictably, Maggie’s daughters, 16-year-old Willa and 13-year-old Gemma aren’t happy. Already in a conflict-ridden relationship with their mother, they lash out at their mother’s decision to foster/adopt the two girls and go off to stay with their father.

Will this group of conflicted individuals ever become a true family?



I have read this author’s work before and have found her writing to be engaging. Unfortunately, this was far from her best work. The story lacked depth and I found so many issues that didn’t sit right.

The doctors are supposed to be helping victims of natural disasters. Although the anchor, Eleanor Price, commends their bravery, we never get the sense of them being in any real danger. The book sees them through a hurricane and a wildfire, but the danger is always past by the time they get there.

Even the trauma that Jean and Rose suffer, of which we hear a lot, is not something that we see in the present, not even in a flashback. It’s just something we are told about.



The descriptions do nothing to make the scenes come alive. The dialogues were cheesy and banal in some cases, and unreal in others, sounding almost like a counselling psychology textbook. Utterly unlike the way normal people would speak.

I didn’t like any of the characters. Not one. They all came across as fake and flat. Jean and Rose have no flaws. They are just so perfect. On the other hand, there’s no let up to the selfishness of Willa and Gemma, no redeeming qualities whatsoever.

Alex was so passive, he was totally unnecessary. Early on, he tells Maggie that Jean and Rose are his favourites among Maggie’s daughters.

Maggie was so ‘good’, it was unbelievable. Especially with the attempts to set the parents of Jean and Rose as being terribly flawed. The girls talking to Maggie as if she was some great saviour was off-putting.

The anchor, Eleanor, was so brash, I wanted to slap her. I couldn’t imagine why Maggie would choose to invite her to do follow up stories with her family.

The only character who stood out miles above the others was Sunny, the little stray that Rose adopts.

Maggie couldn’t seem to make up her mind about Jean and Rose. She flitted back and forth between calling them fostered and adopted. At one point, she told Eleanor that they had been officially adopted. And then, a few pages later, the word, fostered, was used again.

Maggie’s motivation for adopting or fostering the girls was unclear. Why was she so taken up with them? Naturally, her daughters were upset with their mother.

Speaking of the girls, miffed at their mother’s actions, they go to their dad’s house and return more than ten months later. During that time, there is no mention of school. Presumably, they went to school while at their dad’s house, but there was no mention of school for Jean and Rose during those nine months. No mention of the challenges they might have faced. Not even one sentence to say they even went to school.

Also, during that period, as Maggie informs Eleanor, she doesn’t go to work, apparently to help Jean and Rose to adjust. Adjust to what? Willa and Gemma are away, so there are no challenges. How does Maggie earn a living during that period? How does she sustain her lifestyle, including the big house with the swimming pool? She returns to her clinic only at the 88 percent mark in the book. So what does she do during those ten-odd months?

The first chapter, with the interview with Eleanor, is one long and elaborate ‘tell’ exercise. It is boring and the worst way to seek to engage the reader in the lives of the characters.

Maggie does not recognize her own mother just because she has had some work done on her face.

The book has its heart in the right place, the idea that family is irreplaceable and that nothing else matters quite as much, but it takes too long, and the most circuitous route, to establish that. Not exactly an engaging story.

Of course, there is a happy ending, but though the characters’ emotions are wrung through, I was just glad it was over.

Another good read by Catherine Ryan Hyde. I have always liked her stories. This story centers around Dr Maggie Blount and her family. Maggie and her fiance Alex run a charity " Doctors on wheels" they have a mobile office built in an Rv. Maggie is divorced with two spoiled teenager daughters. They stay at their dad's while doctors on wheels go to the site of wildfires or hurricanes, etc, to offer medical care for free to patients that can't afford it or overflow from the ER's. During a terrible storm, two teen girls are brought to them for treatment. No parents around. After treating them,They keep them overnight to monitor as they have pneumonia and need meds at regular times. Social services reports both parents are dead.They were killed when roof caved in.
Social services find the grandparents and takes them there, but they were too feeble to care for girls. Maggie decides to foster the girls .
Don't want to give any spoilers so stopping here...
Just know it's worth reading to find out how it ends...

I received a complimentary copy of this book. The opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.

Catherine Ryan Hyde writes honest, relatable stories with characters who are easy to connect with. This is a story of family - who and what makes a family - and how families can grow and change. It was interesting to read about how the teenage daughters reacted to everything, and everyone around them. I hope this family is somehow mentioned in a future book, just to see how they are doing years later.

This may be a difficult read for anyone who has experienced a hurricane. The descriptions are not all that graphic in my opinion, but the emotional toll was well written.

As usual Catherine Ryan Hyde hit the mark. The story of Maggie and Alex who helped in disasters with Doctors on wheels, a volunteer, non profit service came to me at a time when horrible hurricanes were happening in the south. Not only was this story packed with wisdom and thought provoking reminders but it made me more aware of the effects that climate disasters have on those affected. The relationships among Maggie's biological daughters and her two adopted daughter, although predictable, was enjoyable to read as it progressed. I always enjoy this author’s books!!

This year I have not loved many of my favorite authors new books. While I always look forward to a new Catherine Ryan Hyde book, this one was disappointing. Rolling Towards Clear Skies is about relationships between mothers and daughters, another topic I usually enjoy, yet I could not at all relate to how Maggie treated her daughters. I did not like her or her decisions. Her two daughters were evil, though if I had a mother like Maggie I may have been too. The topic had potential but it missed the mark. Thank you Lake Union Publishing and NetGalley for an ARC of Rolling Towards Clear Skies in exchange for an honest review.

After a slow start, Rolling Toward Clear Skies finally captured my interest and kept it throughout. At times I thought that the contrast between the two sets of sisters was a bit over the top. However, the difficulties of blended families were well presented, with enough tension to make it believable. I always look forward to Catherine Ryan Hyde’s books. They present a novel way of looking at things.