The Road Before Us: A Novel (Paperback)

The Road before Us follows Jade on a Route 66 journey of financial restoration, family, forgiveness, and freedom from a painful past—until a devastating betrayal changes everything.

When her fiancé steals millions in a Ponzi scheme, Jade agrees to help an aged Hollywood starlet and her foster son seek financial restoration by filming a documentary along Route 66. Along the way, Jade just might learn to live free of her past and see what family really is--if she can survive a staggering betrayal.

How far would you go to fix your mistakes and regain the trust you lost? For Jade Jessup, the answer is 2,448 miles. Once one of Chicago's leading financial advisors, Jade lost credibility when her fiancé (and coworker) stole millions from clients in a Ponzi scheme. Now she's agreed to help one of them--an aging 1960s Hollywood starlet named Berenice "Benny" Alderidge--seek financial restoration.

Jade sets off along Route 66 with Benny and her handsome adult foster son, Bridger, who is filming a documentary retracing the 1956 trip that started the love story between Benny and her recently deceased husband, Paul. Listening to Benny recount her story draws Jade into memories of her own darker association with Route 66, when she was kidnapped as a child by a man the media labelled a monster--but she remembers only as daddy.

Together, all three of these pilgrims will learn about family, forgiveness, and what it means to live free of the past. But not before Jade faces a second staggering betrayal that changes everything.