Mary Kay Andrews talks to Club Calvi about her new book "Road Trip"
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You know summer is around the corner when there's a new book by New York Times bestselling author Mary Kay Andrews. She wrote the 2023 Club Calvi Readers' Choice book "Bright Lights, Big Christmas." Andrews' new novel "Road Trip" is about two sisters, Maeve and Therese, who have been estranged for years but are forced to unite to fulfill their mother's final wish that they travel together to Ireland, and to solve a family mystery involving a portrait.
Andrews told Mary Calvi that a road trip she took to Ireland inspired the book.
"Therese wants to find out the truth about this portrait, and is it worth something," Andrews explained. "They are both penniless. But they find out who they are. And they find out who they can become."
Andrews says all of her books are about reinvention.
"Women reinventing themselves," Andrews explained. "Women giving themselves permission to define who they are. Not allowing the world to say this is what you are. Not allowing anyone to buttonhole them, or define them, or limit them."
She remarked that lambs are included in the book cover of "Road Trip." The image reminded her of a scene in the book where one of the sisters pulls the car over to pet a baby lamb.
"That really happened," Andrews said. "My friend and I were on a tour of either the Dingle Peninsula or the Ring of Kerry. We saw an elderly man pulled over on the side of the road and he had a hand-lettered sign, pet baby lamb, five euros. So we said, of course, I want to pet a baby lamb. I have a photo of myself holding this adorable baby lamb. It had to go in the book."
Andrews will have a book tour stop on Friday, June 12, in Huntington, Long Island.
You can read an excerpt from "Road Trip" and get the book below.
The CBS New York Book Club focuses on books connected to the Tri-State Area in their plots and/or authors. The books may contain adult themes.
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"Road Trip" by Mary Kay Andrews
From the publisher: Maeve and Therese Dunigan haven't spoken in years. Raised under the same roof in Savannah, the two sisters could not be more opposite—Maeve the rule follower, Therese the unapologetic rebel. But when their mother's death pulls them back together, they inherit more than just grief: a mysterious painting that may be worth millions…if it's real.
Determined to uncover the truth—and desperately in need of the money—the sisters set out on a journey to Ireland, tracing their family's roots and the origins of the portrait. What begins as a search for answers soon becomes something deeper—a reckoning with the past, as they uncover secrets that span generations and reshape everything they thought they knew about their family.
With tensions simmering, the two hit the road and find themselves on twisty lanes, in colorful villages, at local pubs, and with handsome men whose gift of the gab is surpassed only by their charm.
Can Maeve and Therese actually survive the journey without killing each other?
Mary Kay Andrews lives in Atlanta.
"Road Trip" by Mary Kay Andrews (ThriftBooks) $23
Excerpt: "Road Trip" by Mary Kay Andrews
County Wicklow, Ireland, 1926
Lady Delia Rossington waited. She was particularly adept at waiting, having perfected the fine art of patience over her nearly six decades.
Waiting to be chosen by some inferior man pretending to be a beau, then waiting for the inheritance that should have been hers, waiting for her brother Edward to recognize her worth, her value to a household that his lovely, scheming bride had no talent or interest
in managing.
She'd waited, and prayed, for Edward's safe return from war only to see him felled, just three months earlier, by pneumonia, in the cruelest of ironies.
Now the time for waiting was over. Unfortunately, it was time to put her plan in place.
She found Kathleen in the library, worrying over a bit of knitting, her brow furrowed in concentration. "Come, child," she said, beckoning her out into the hallway.
Of course Kathleen, at eighteen, was no longer a child. She'd grown into a beautiful young woman with a slim build and glossy chestnut hair. Full lips, like her poor mother's, and a high, wide forehead and alert, dark eyes under straight brows. She had Edward's eyes, though nobody ever dared mention that under this roof. The mere fact of her fresh, innocent beauty, and her unavoidable proximity to Delia's nephews, Teddy and David, who had their father's roving eye, put Kathleen in a danger Delia could no longer ignore.
"Ma'am?" Kathleen said, hurrying to catch up with Delia.
"No time for questions." She had the packed satchel tucked under her arm. Now she led the girl to the portrait gallery, where a hundred or more paintings of past generations of Rossingtons hung in their splendid gilt frames, pausing in front of the only one Delia Rossington truly cared about.
She gazed up at the portrait for what she assumed would be the last time.
The subject of this painting was a woman in the full flower of youth, with wavy, reddish hair swept off her face and a fine porcelain complexion. She was seated on an ornate chair, dressed in a gown made of filmy turquoise fabric with embroidered layers, a daring, plunging neckline, and long, ruffled sleeves. A satin sash encircled her narrow waist and a broad-brimmed straw picture hat trailed from her fingertips. She wore a large diamond ring on her left hand and gold bracelets on both wrists. Her necklace was a fine gold chain studded with rare opals and diamonds.
What Delia loved best about the portrait was the sitter's expression. Her eyes, the exact shade of turquoise as the gown, glinted with a hint of secret amusement, lips slightly turned up in the merest suggestion of a smile.
"Miss Delia?" Kathleen was a quick-witted girl and she'd obviously intuited her benefactor's state of determination.
"Do you know who this is?" Delia asked. And then, without waiting, answered her own question. "This is your grandmama. Lady Geraldine Cressida Fitzhugh Rossington. She was a great lady, and not just because of her title. She was a noblewoman in the truest sense of the word."
Delia's lips tightened. "Unlike that one who calls herself a lady." She jerked her chin upward to signal that she was referring to her sister-in-law, the current Lady Rossington, the newly widowed Fiona.
"You must remember that always, Kathleen. No matter what troubles overtake you in life, your grandmama is a part of you. And nothing, and nobody, can take that from you."
"But . . ." Kathleen's brow furrowed again. "I thought . . . Mum always said her people . . ."
Delia had a response ready. "Your mum, God rest her soul, was a good girl. She did what she had to do to take care of you and your brother Tommy and your little sisters. She couldn't tell you the whole story. And I always felt, I mean, I promised your mum, I would keep her secret. Because the real story wasn't mine to tell."
She let out a long sigh. "But things have changed, and not for the better. Your own mum, and Mr. Connor, a perfectly decent man, and your little sisters perished in that awful fire. You know, of course, that my brother, Lord Edward, is deceased. So now, that one . . ."
Delia was referring again to Fiona, whose name she rarely, if ever, spoke. "That one, who is a nasty piece of work, if ever there was one, is turning me out of the only home I've ever known."
Kathleen gasped.
"No worries about me. I'll be fine," Delia said quickly. "I've a bit of money of my own that she can't touch, and dear friends in Tralee, who've offered me a nice little cottage on their estate. But it's your future that's troubling me, Kathleen. With me out of the way, and no family of your own except for little Tommy, there's no telling what that one, or her sons, will do. And that's why I've taken matters into my own hands."
Kathleen watched, wide-eyed, as Delia extracted a small silver knife with a lethal-looking
blade from the pocket of her dress. She ran the knife around the edges of the portrait of Lady Geraldine, slicing the canvas free of the frame, then rolled the painting up and thrust it into the leather satchel tucked under her arm.
"You can't . . ." Kathleen stammered.
"I can, and I did," Delia said. "Now come along. We've got things to do here while themselves are away." She started down the long hall, in the direction of the back staircase, only once turning and snapping at Kathleen, who stood, frozen, in front of the empty picture frame. "Come along then, girl, and be quick about it."
Delia led the girl straight upstairs to the east wing, a place Kathleen had never been before even though she'd lived at Rossington Hall for most of her life. She wasn't really family to Lady Delia or any of therest of the Rossingtons—that much Fiona had made very clear from the beginning. But she wasn't a servant either.
From Road Trip by Mary Kay Andrews Copyright © 2026 by the author and reprinted by permission of St. Martin's Publishing Group.