Over the years, I have come to realize that I enjoy a good road trip novel much more than I would an actual road trip. Maybe that's partially because my expectations for what a road trip could, or should, be have been increasingly colored by those self-same books. After all, how could endless hours on the interstate compare with a fictional road trip like the one Annie Hartnett has invented, involving long-lost relatives, a slew of other colorful characters, an alligator named T. Boone Pickens, a cat who may or may not be an agent of death, and a sprinkle or two of magic?

Winning $1.5 million in the Massachusetts state lottery might have been the best, or worst, thing that ever happened to 63-year-old PJ Halliday. Okay, it's definitely not the worst thing --- that dubious honor goes to the death of his older daughter, Kate, who drowned in a cranberry bog on the night of her senior prom. Winning the lottery, though, did give PJ just the time and money he needed to spend his days drinking himself into a stupor and pining over his ex-wife, Ivy.

"THE ROAD TO TENDER HEARTS is a big-hearted meditation on caregiving, second chances, and the miracle of living (and laughing) in the midst of death."

Now Ivy and her long-time boyfriend, Fred, are heading off to Alaska on the trip of a lifetime, and PJ is feeling lonely and bereft. Upon learning that his long-ago high school crush, Michelle Cobb, has been widowed recently, PJ hatches a plan to "borrow" Fred's car and head off to the Tender Hearts Retirement Community in Tucson, Arizona, for one last chance at happiness. Little does PJ know that a tragedy unfolding just a few blocks away in Pondville, Massachusetts, is about to upend his own life in the best way possible.

Overnight, nine-year-old Ollie and 10-year-old Luna have been orphaned as the result of a particularly grisly murder-suicide. Their grandfather was PJ's estranged brother, making PJ their closest living relative --- and their new, rather unlikely, guardian. Hell-bent on getting to Michelle, PJ invites the kids along on his road trip and enlists his recently unemployed younger daughter, Sophie, for the ride. They're also accompanied by that "agent of death" cat, Pancakes, who knows more than he's letting on.

In an author's note at the end of the book, Hartnett explains that THE ROAD TO TENDER HEARTS was born out of a challenge she set herself --- to write a funny novel about some of the worst tragedies that can befall people. It’s safe to say that she succeeds. The book is wise, witty and emotional without ever veering into sappiness. PJ's journey is a literal one, but it's also metaphorical. He takes more than a few detours on his road to a sobriety that might enable him to care for these youngsters with his whole self, in a way that he still regrets not being able to do for his own daughters.

Readers who are parents themselves --- or are fond of children --- will have a hard time not tearing up at a couple of key moments in the novel, as PJ and Sophie wrap their heads around their new roles as caregivers. THE ROAD TO TENDER HEARTS is a big-hearted meditation on caregiving, second chances, and the miracle of living (and laughing) in the midst of death. Pancakes sums it up near the end of the book: "Death is a magnificent invention, the cat knew, because it's the impermanence of life that makes it beautiful."