On the Road Again by Paige Shelton

Jenn McKinlay: There is nothing I love better than a good road trip and Mary Higgins Clark Award Nominee (you had to know I was going to work that in, Paige) and dear friend, Paige Shelton, is here to tell us about one of hers! Welcome Paige!

Paige Shelton: I don’t know how we managed to pull it off, but back
when I was nineteen (1984), my best friend and I took off and saw the world, by ourselves. Well, it wasn’t the entire world, it was . . . east of Iowa. That’s the direction we wanted to go, and that’s what we did. 

When we were sixteen, we told our parents we were going to do it. We’re pretty sure they thought we were kidding, but we weren’t. I still remember them looking at us as we drove away, their expressions a combination of disbelief, worry, and certainty that we’d turn around in a day or two. We were gone for thirty. 

We had a CB radio. We had cassette tapes with all the Springsteen anyone could want. We camped out on Lake Erie. We slept in the car – got cleaned up wherever we could. We also had friends and family we stayed with on some nights. We drove and walked all around New York City. We saw Waylon Jennings walking into a studio in Nashville. We drove right into the middle of a shift change on a dock in Newport News. My goodness, we were lucky. We had one car issue, but a sympathetic mechanic (probably had a daughter or two) just took care of it and sent us on our way. We made friends with truckers and had meals with them. We never felt uncomfortable around them, and they welcomed us and watched over us. I wish I remembered the CB names we gave ourselves, but I don’t. I can’t even imagine us getting away with such a trip nowadays. I wouldn’t have let my son take a road trip with a couple of buddies when he was nineteen. The times have certainly changed. 

However, I still love a good road trip and try to take a couple every year. My husband and I even took one during the summer of 2020. We spent most of the time in his truck (a pick-up, not like the big rigs from the earlier road trip) or doing outside things as we traveled up to Omaha to see our son and his fiancé. We wore masks everywhere. Once we’re vaccinated to the max – Maxinated, I call it, we’ll still wear masks but we’re hitting the road again.  



I think my love for road trips started when I was a kid, as, it seems, our genuine loves typically do. We would drive to visit my grandparents in Missouri for Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Easter. My mom slept, but my dad and I sang. I know many old country western songs. Those were also the days when kids sat on their parent’s laps and held onto the steering wheel. I remember those curvy Missouri back roads well. It’s a wonder I’m still here. 

 Driving through Rolla Missouri was when I learned about Route 66. Though on June 27, 1985, it was declared to no longer be a U.S. Highway, there are still many parts that are preserved and can be seen if you veer off the nearby main roads, which are now mostly I-40 and I-44. I still take that back way every once in a while, and I’ve made some fabulous discoveries. My favorite is Arlington in Missouri. 

Arlington is an old train station and ghost town, near Jerome, Missouri, and it’s fascinating. Train tracks run next to the old station and then lead to a bridge over the Gasconade River. There are a few other houses around and I think it was also an RV resort at one time but not anymore. I highly recommend you take a look if you’re anywhere near there. I hear the bridge might be torn down soon. Oh, I hope not. 

Here’s a picture: 


Photo from: www.Hookedonroute66.com
 

Cool, huh? How about you? Do you have a favorite road trip, a favorite place to pull over and look at the scenery? I’d love to know about it. 

 The fabulous Jenn McKinlay invited to me to post today and talk about my upcoming Scottish Bookshop book, DEADLY EDITIONS.

Thanks to Jenn and all the Jungle Reds and readers. Forgive me for being so distracted by the idea that a road trip might be in my very near future, that that’s what I was compelled to write about. I would be thrilled and honored if you checked out the book though. It was a blast to write (Jekyll and Hyde and Scottish pubs abound). It’s book six in the series and it publishes April 6. See, that’s kind of like Route 66. Thank you!

A treasure hunt through Edinburgh gives way to a search for a villain terrorizing the city in the sixth Scottish Bookshop Mystery.

It’s a quiet, snowy morning at The Cracked Spine bookshop, when bookseller Delaney Nichols receives a mysterious visitor, a messenger. He presents her with a perplexing note: an invitation to a meeting with eccentric socialite Shelagh O'Conner, who requests Delaney’s participation in an exclusive treasure hunt. Delaney is intrigued, but also cautious: Shelagh, while charming in person, has a reputation for her hijinks as a wealthy young woman in the '70s. She was even once suspected for the murder of a former boyfriend, though ultimately cleared of all charges.

But Delaney is enticed by the grand prize at the end of the treasure hunt: a highly valuable first edition copy of The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, by Robert Louis Stevenson. The winner is also to receive the contents of Shelagh's vast library, and all participants will earn a large sum of cash.

The night after the first meeting of the treasure hunters, however, several homes in Edinburgh are robbed in a manner reminiscent of Shelagh's old tricks. And when a man connected to Shelagh is killed, suspicion builds. Except Shelagh herself has disappeared from her home, seemingly kidnapped by the villain.

Terror mounts throughout the city as Delaney attempts to solve the mystery, while trying to evade the killer's clutches. But it’s hard to know who to trust when around every corner, a new monster could be lurking.

 

Paige Shelton is the New York Times Bestselling author of the Farmers' Market, Country Cooking School, Dangerous Type, and Scottish Bookshop mysteries. She's lived lots of places but currently resides in Arizona. Find out more at www.paigeshelton.com

The Meaning of Life (why not?)

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN:  So here we all are, and here we are every day, and there’s something that draws us together, right? It’s—what? You never know what’ll be here at the end of that click, right?  It’s always an adventure.  And the destination? It’s different every day.

It’s like that for an author, too, as each new book comes out.  Art Taylor’s new one,  On the Road with Del & Louise: A Novel in Stories, (due out September 15 from Henery Press) is a wonderful experiment in destinations.  And even a metaphor for life. Truly! 

We’ll let Art explain it all.

Blog Hops, Road Trips, and Bigger Travels

                                  by Art Taylor

I’d hesitate to call attention to this post being part of a longer series of appearances, but the idea of a blog tour and going “on the road” seemed somehow connected—and somewhere at the core of the thoughts swirling around in my head right now. I’ve participated in a couple of blog tours already this year and as author friends well know, this kind of thing seems core to marketing plans in today’s social media-driven climate.

But how are you supposed to go about it? What is it we authors should be delivering our readers at each stop of the way?

Having once curated a small blog myself way back when (now defunct), I’ve seen pitches from publicists and authors alike offering a ready-made column to be reprinted ad infinitum (and ad nauseam) by anyone who wants it—which strikes me as inevitably a mistake. While custom-built content for each stop is more challenging and time-consuming, it’s also more interesting for readers, of course—which should ultimately be the sole concern for the writer, even if it means having to brainstorm fresh topics each turn of the tour. It’s an opportunity; and opportunities shouldn’t be wasted.

I recognize that at this point some of you may be thinking, “And yet, Art, you seem to be wasting this this very opportunity right now….”

Please, bear with me—because I want to use that word opportunities above as a hinge of sorts, connecting the dos and don’ts of a blog hop and the dos and don’ts of a road trip and, ultimately, explaining what I was trying to do with my own book, a novel in stories that follows small-time crooks Del and Louise from the American Southwest, up the California coast, then cross-country in a couple of directions en route to Louise’s home state of North Carolina.

A concert tour may allow a rock star to perform a similar set stop after stop, city after city, choreographed almost down to the minute, but a blog tour shouldn’t rehash the same material—any more than a road trip should follow some well-known, well-worn route. The commute to work isn’t a road trip, anymore than the weekly trip to the grocery store is. (No matter how I try to convince my three-year-old otherwise—anything to get him in the car!)

  

Just as a blog tour might offer opportunities—not just for promotion but for connection and exploration—so too should the start of any road trip be filled with a sense of adventure and possibility and opportunity: the open road, the fresh start, the blank slate—and who knows where we’re going this time?

(Again, I recognize that may of you might still be asking, “Where is Art going?” I do not blame you.)

In addition to navigating that up-the-coast and cross-the-country trek, Del and Louise are trying to navigate a lot more: uncertain routes toward success and stability, with more than a couple of economic bumps in the road, and then the even more treacherous paths toward finding and maintaining romance. (Yikes! Where’s a GPS when you need one?)

The structure of the novel isn’t a continuous narrative but a series of six short stories,

each of which begins in a new place, another stop among the many hops of that bigger road trip. Experience accumulates, of course—each of their “fresh starts” (as they call them) builds on what’s come before—but the stakes keep getting upped each time. Repeating similar conflicts and complaints and conquests adventure to adventure wouldn’t be interesting, of course—no more than trotting out that ready-made blog column website after website.

For all of us (trying to connect now the characters in the book with us authors on our own tours), the question that persists shouldn’t just be “Where am I today, this week, next week?” but “What am I struggling with this time or looking for this time?” Maybe the answer to that is simply adventure, maybe it’s bigger perspectives on the world or the self, maybe it’s connection —whether character to character or author to reader, depending on where I’ve ended up with these metaphors (even I’m not sure at this point).

What I’m trying to say is this: As writers, it’s our responsibility to give readers a good ride—whether in a piece of fiction we’ve written or in a simple online posting. It doesn’t have to be a white-knuckled thrill ride each time. Pacing your way through a cross-country journey, a few scenic stops along the way, can be transformative. Even a contemplative jaunt on a leisurely Sunday has its pleasures (and maybe a surprise or two in store, too, we’d hope). Maybe the best rides are not knowing when the Sunday drive or cross-country trip might take that white-knuckled turn.

What I’m saying is this: Ultimately, it’s best to vary our experiences each leg of the journey. Following the same old routes and routines…well, in the end, that won’t get you anywhere, will it? 

  

HANK: Oh, Art, you are amazing, And Reds readers—for more af Art, come back Sunday! For your reading delight, Jungle Reds is, hosting this year’s Anthony finalists for Best Short Story! With info and links to every one!

And talking about destinations—did you go anywhere fun this summer?   Did you plan in advance—or, as Art says…was there a surprise or two along the way? (We saw Alan Alda at a restaurant in the Berkshires! That counts, right?)