REVIEW: The Road to Tender Hearts by Annie Hartnett
Book #64 of 2025, done!
📖BOOK: The Road to Tender Hearts by Annie Hartnett
🎧FORMAT: Audiobook via Prince William County Library & Libby App
📚GENRE: Fiction
📅RELEASED: April 29th, 2025
⏱️AUDIOBOOK LENGTH: 12 hours (Listened at 1.75x speed)
⭐RATING: ⭐⭐⭐☆☆ (3 out of 5 stars)
👉 PURCHASE: Click Here to Purchase
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🧳SYNOPSIS:
”At sixty-three years old, million-dollar lottery winner PJ Halliday would be the luckiest man in Pondville, Massachusetts, if it weren’t for the tragedies of his life: the sudden death of his eldest daughter and the way his marriage fell apart after that. Since then, PJ spends both his money and his time at the bar, and he probably doesn’t have much time left—he’s had three heart attacks already.
But when PJ reads the obituary of his old romantic rival, he realizes his high school sweetheart, Michelle Cobb, is finally single again. Filled with a new enthusiasm for life, PJ decides he’s going to drive across the country to the Tender Hearts Retirement Community in Arizona to win Michelle back.
Before PJ can hit the road, tragedy strikes Pondville, leaving PJ the sudden guardian of his estranged brother’s grandchildren. Anyone else would be deterred from the planned trip, but PJ figures the orphaned kids might benefit from getting out of town. PJ also thinks he can ask Sophie, his adult daughter who’s adrift in her twenties, to come along to babysit. And there’s one more surprise addition to the roster: Pancakes, a former nursing home therapy cat with a knack of predicting death, who recently turned up outside PJ’s home.
This could be the second chance PJ has long hoped for—a fresh shot at love and parenting—but does he have the strength to do both those things again? It’s very possible his heart can’t take it.”
💬THE VIBE:
Melancholic but ultimately hopeful. A story that leans into life’s hardest moments without losing sight of the possibility of redemption.
💡STANDOUT ELEMENTS:
The layered characters whose pain feels authentic. Some of the quieter scenes were more powerful than any grand gesture.
🧠WHAT STUCK:
The way grief was portrayed as something that doesn’t simply disappear but changes over time.
👎WHAT DIDN’T WORK FOR ME:
A few of the character dynamics felt a bit uneven, and there were moments when the connections didn’t fully ring true for me.
🤔IF YOU LIKE:
Multi-perspective stories about complicated families
Narratives that explore grief without sugarcoating it, or overdoing it
Books where healing happens slowly, in small increments
🙅♀️IF YOU DON’T LIKE:
Sad themes and emotional content
Character-driven plots with less external action
📝FINAL VERDICT:
3 stars.
The Road to Tender Hearts is a tender, quietly affecting novel that balances tragedy with moments of warmth. I appreciated its honesty about how loss can reshape us and the possibility of redemption and the work necessary to accomplish that.
