Evie Walters Takes the Wheel
by Kathleen Fox
My Rating: 4 stars
Genre: Women’s Fiction
Age Category: Adult
Type of romance: m/f
Blurb:
In this warmhearted and witty debut, a mysterious gift spurs a widow to take a cross-country journey to find its sender—and along the way, she rediscovers herself.Evie Walters has lived most of her seventy-one years according to others’ expectations. But on the day of her husband’s funeral, she receives an anonymous delivery: an egret orchid. The same flower a Montana ranch hand once gave her decades ago—Novel Daniels, the boy who thought she could do anything.
So now, she does.
Defying her children’s plans to move her into a retirement home, Evie buys a camper van and leaves life in North Carolina abruptly behind. Accompanied by her devoted rescue dog, she heads west to find her cowboy, befriending an unlikely cast of characters along the way. Free-spirited young vanlifers, roadside waitresses, eccentric billionaires, and kindhearted widowers all show Evie a side of life worth living.
But Evie’s drive toward the future takes her back to the past, to memories of the family ranch and childhood dreams. Now, with a second chance as open as the road before her, there’s no telling who Evie Walters will become.
My Review
I received a free copy from the publisher through Netgalley and voluntarily reviewed it.
This one caught my eye when I saw it on Netgalley, there’s something about stories with unusual settings like a camper van that appeal to me and add in the discovering yourself type plot line the blurb promised I knew I had to read this one. And it didn’t take me long after that I start reading it. I loved this story and really enjoyed reading it.
The start felt a bit slow to me, Evie Walters just lost her husband and the book starts with the funeral and her dealing with all of that and then an egret orchid arrives, it’s the same orchid that her first love Novel grew and slowly she gains the courage to do something she has never done before. She ends up buying a camper van and sets out for Montana and her hometown and hopefully the cowboy who stole her heart.
Now the setup sounds quite romantic and it definitely is, but more than that it’s about a women of seventy-one years old finally living her life not to others expectations, but finding her own way. It’s about standing up for what you believe in and figuring out who you really are. I liked the message of how it’s never too late and you’re never too old to (re)discover yourself. I loved following Evie’s journey and most of all seeing her become more of herself and figure out what she wants from life.
This book was just beautifully written. I loved the camper van plot line and as soon as Evie left with her RV I was hooked. I enjoyed seeing Evie visit new places she never been before and meet interesting characters. There are two young van-lifers she meets and the book contains their emails as they stay in contact. And their stories develop throughout the book as well. I also liked seeing Evie meet Cher and become friends. And then there was Carter and his father as well as the billionaire lady who teaches Evie some valuable lessons.
I really liked seeing Evie’s path cross with these various characters and how these encounters changed and allowed her to slowly become who she wants to be. I also liked the dog she adopts Ms Brown and the bond she forms with her. Then there are Evie’s kids and her grandkids that also play a role in the story. And it was just lovely reading about it all.
The story is mostly told from Evie’s point of view, but interspersed are chapters from Novel’s point of view and they show how Novel and Evie fell in love back when they were younger. I liked how this gave some more understanding of Evie’s past, but sometimes it could pull me out of the story a bit. Nevertheless I think their relationship and the meaning it has to them both wouldn’t have come across without those chapters and I did like seeing a younger Evie and her romance with Novel.
I really liked some scenes toward the end when Evie returns to Montana and can revisit the ranch she grew up in. I also liked how Evie was there for Braids and Buns and helped them out. And then the actual ending was wonderfully hopeful, but also a bit too open for my taste. I just love a good epilogue and knowing exactly what happens, but I did think there was something fitting about the open ending and the feel that Evie’s journey isn’t over yet and there isn’t an end, but just more to come even if that more isn’t part of the book.
To summarize: There was something so wonderful about this book. I loved the RV theme and seeing Evie set off on her journey with her RV towards her home town and the cowboy who captured her heart when she was younger. While the set-up is pretty romantic, I felt mostly that this was about Evie’s journey and her finding out who she wants to be and I just loved that theme and the message that you’re never too old to find out who you are and to carve your own path. I liked reading about Evie’s adventures and reading about the places she visited and the characters she met along the way. There are also some chapters set in past and tell Evie and Novel’s romance from Novel’s point of view, which gave a better understanding of their past and how they connected. The ending was a bit too open ended for my taste, but I also thought there was something fitting about the open ending and how it’s clear Evie’s journey continues.
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