One For the Road by Crystal Green

Fairly enjoyable road-trip romance

3 stars

Lucy Christie is fed up with her life – a dull job and boring relationships aren’t giving her the excitement she craves. So she and her friend head out for a holiday down the iconic Route 66 for some fun, thrills and no-strings sex.

Lucy’s first conquest is rugged cowboy, Joshua. He’s mysterious, sexy and she’s loving every minute of being with him. But the formerly straight-laced Lucy is determined to keep her ‘stranger’ fantasy just that – so no names, no commitments and no attachments. What she doesn’t count on is Joshua tagging along on their holiday and being determined to seduce her stop after stop.

I liked the idea of a road-trip romance and essentially the book was a fun read but I just didn’t feel connected to the characters and that made it difficult to give the book more than 3 stars.

Lucy was a likeable enough character – a woman who was used to having her life mapped out the way she wanted it and wasn’t much for breaking the rules. While watching her discover herself was nice enough, I don’t really think she would become such a different person in such a short space of time. Joshua was also a fine enough character but we only ever skim the surface of him. This made it as if you were being told about these people but you’re just not sure whether you believe it.

There was a lot of sex within the book and while not bland, the emotional connection wasn’t there for me during these scenes either so it was hard to get too interested in them.

There is also a secondary romance with Lucy’s best friend and the young college student they meet on their trip. Having never been a fan of the younger man-older woman story line, I felt this didn’t add anything to the book and I wanted to skip through these pages to get to the main love story.

Having said all this, the book is still well-written, engaging and you do want to keep reading to find out what happens to the characters. It wasn’t really my cup of tea but I can see many people enjoying it and I would still recommend the book for a lazy afternoon read – it’s just maybe not one for the keeper shelf.