A SONG FOR THE ROAD by Kathleen Basi - Review & Giveaway

 

Kathleen Basi offers us a story about honoring the ones we love and learning to love ourselves in her novel, A SONG FOR THE ROAD(AlcovePress).

It's been one year since Miriam Tedesco's life came to a screeching halt. Her husband and twin teenagers were killed in an auto accident. Then the flowers that come every year for her anniversary arrive. She completely falls apart. Her BFF, Becky is by her side 24/7 and wants to help her move on. Miriam goes into her daughter, Talia's bedroom and opens her computer. She finds an embedded program which her children, Talia and Blaise created for Miriam and her husband, Teo to travel when the kids went off to college later that year. 

After watching the video and seeing pictures of her family, she decides to go on the trip to honor her children. Music was the center of the their lives, so Miriam packs her husband's guitar, daughter's cello and son's unfinished piano sonata. She hits the road and embarks on a musical pilgrimage.

Miriam meets a young pregnant hitchhiker name Dicey, who reminds her of Talia. Dicey takes the passenger seat with Miriam and they stop at the obscure places her kids programmed, make music, even encounter a tornado. Her world slowly opens up and she finds herself looking harder at what she had rather than what she lost. But she has a deep secret and realizes the best way to honor her family may be to accept the truths she's never wanted to face.

I found myself laughing and crying while reading A SONG FOR THE ROAD. The book is all about forgiveness, being vulnerable and learning not to beat oneself up, but love. It's wonderful to read and "watch" Miriam heal. I admired her. While reading Kathleen's book, I appreciated that I wasn't proselytized to. That easily could have happened because Miriam and her family are Catholic. Grief is very individual and no one can tell you how to experience it. It's never fully gone, but eventually it has it's place in one's soul and one can move on - never forgetting, but not being emotionally paralyzed.

Author and liturgical composer Kathleen M. Basi is mother to three active boys (read that: always breaking something) and one chromosomally-gifted daughter. A proud native of flyover country and an honest-to-goodness farm girl (as in cattle, hogs, chickens, grain bins and a combine). She spent her childhood climbing trees, jumping off hay bales and chasing cattle back into their pasture when they broke through fences. (But she never once tipped a cow.)

Road trips are familiar territory for her, as she took several 3-week RV trips with her grandparents. She saw more national parks in her first 10 years than many people see in their entire childhood, and she loves exploring new places. (Especially the food.)

Her nonfiction has appeared in a number of magazines, Chicken Soup for the Soul and on NPR’s All Things Considered. Her fiction is represented by Sonali Chanchani and Claudia Cross.

www.KathleenBasi.com

Thanks to Suzy Approved Book Tours we have one copy to giveaway. Just tell us if you've ever experienced grief. You don't have to get personal. Tell us a one-liner. We'll announce a winner soon. Good luck.

GIVEAWAY: USA only please