finished reading

On this road trip adventure, there are deep issues such as redemption, dysfunction, healing, and second chances, balanced by humor and outrageous situations. This book is full of delightfully quirky characters.  Starting with the antihero, PJ Halliday, who is approaching rock bottom at an alarming pace.  His heart is mostly in the right place as he makes questionable decisions galore.  PJ's younger daughter Sophie, who has sort of failed to launch after her older sister's death. Add in two grieving siblings who are smack in the tween years, who are wise beyond their years in a naive way.  PJ's ex-wife Ivy and her boyfriend Fred (who PJ calls his best friend) add the dash of normal to this cast of characters. And rounding out the motley group is Pancakes, the sentient ginger cat whose special talent is sensing death.

From the publisher:

A darkly comic and warm-hearted novel about an old man on a cross-country mission to reunite with his high school crush—bringing together his adult daughter, two orphaned kids, and a cat who can predict death—from the beloved author of Rabbit Cake and Unlikely Animals

At sixty-three years old, million-dollar lottery winner PJ Halliday would be the luckiest man in Pondville, Massachusetts, if it weren’t for the tragedies of his life: the sudden death of his eldest daughter and the way his marriage fell apart after that. Since then, PJ spends both his money and his time at the bar, and he probably doesn’t have much time left—he’s had three heart attacks already.

But when PJ reads an obituary of his old romantic rival, he realizes his high school sweetheart, Michelle Cobb, is finally single again. Filled with a new enthusiasm for life, PJ decides he’s going to drive across the country to the Tender Hearts Retirement Community in Arizona to win Michelle back.

Before PJ can hit the road, tragedy strikes Pondville, leaving PJ the sudden guardian of his estranged brother’s grandchildren. Anyone else would be deterred from the planned trip, but PJ figures the orphaned kids might benefit from getting out of town. PJ also figures he can ask Sophie, his adult daughter, adrift in her 20s, to come along to babysit. And there’s one more surprise addition to the roster: Pancakes, a former nursing home therapy cat with a knack of predicting death, who recently turned up outside PJ’s home.

This could be the second chance PJ has long hoped for—a second shot at love and parenting—but does he have the strength to do both those things again? It’s very possible his heart can’t take it.