RUN FOR THE HILLS by Kevin Wilson

5 stars

This riotously humorous, heartwarming and deeply moving novel grabs onto you and never lets go.

Madeline (nicknamed Mad) has grown up helping her Mom run their family farm after her Dad suddenly abandoned the family twenty years earlier and disappeared without a word or a trace. Since then Maddie and her Mom have become famous for their amazing eggs and featured in innumerable magazine spreads. But Mad’s life has been full of hard work and loneliness until the day that Reuben Hill (Rube) pulls up in his PT Cruiser to share that he is her half-brother. He informs Mad that their Dad abandoned him and his Mom in Boston before moving to Tennessee. He has hired a detective who found an address for their Dad in California as well as identifying addresses of other siblings. Rube is off on a road trip to confront him, and Mad, with her Mom’s support, makes the spontaneous and scary decision to tag along.

They want to check out two other kids he fathered, who turn out similarly abandoned by their Dad. They both want to meet them and see if they want to join them. What’s crazy is that with each new family iteration, their Dad completely changed his profession, came up with a new variant of his first name, and given each child a similarly catchy nickname. Each child has grown up unaware of the others and raised as only children spaced about a decade apart. They each feel that when he was with them, their Dad was great and supportive. But their father’s abandonment has left different emotional scars for each, and they slowly build trust to share these vulnerabilities as well as childhood stories with each other.

As the adventure ratches up with new stops, attending a championship college basketball tournament in Texas, and new siblings, they begin to form the deep bonds as a emergent new kind of family. Hilarity also ensures, with the cross country trip taking comical twists including the fate of the PT Cruiser itself. Each sibling is unique, fully realized, and compelling.

They race to find their Dad with a litany of unanswered questions, including what kind of man totally abandons those he loves and is emotional reparation even a possibility?

Thanks to Ecco and Netgalley for an advanced reader’s copy.

Stacy DeBroff

Stacy DeBroff, founder and CEO of Mom Central.com and social and digital consultancy, Influence Central, is a social media strategist, attorney, and best-selling parenting author. A sought-after expert for national media, she trend-spots regularly with national brands and speaks frequently to national and international audiences on a wide range of subjects, including influencer marketing, social media, entrepreneurship, and consumer trends. A passionate cook, gardener, reader, and tennis player, she adores this new chapter of post-college-age parenting.