THE ROAD AND BEYOND is the expanded book-club edition of THE ROAD TO YOU by New York Times & USA Today bestselling author Marilyn Brant. This novel contains not only the completed original story set in the late 1970s, but it also includes the brand-new present-day tale of Aurora, now a mature and married woman with two adult sons, who must confront her worst parental nightmare. One Disappearance Had Been Enough To Last Her A Lifetime... Aurora Gray is no stranger to tragedy. In the summer of 1976, when she was just sixteen, her world turned upside down when her big brother Gideon and his best friend Jeremy disappeared. For two years, there's no word from either of them. No trace of their whereabouts. But then, shortly after her high-school graduation, she unexpectedly finds her brother's journal and sees that it's been written in again. Recently. By him. There are secret messages coded within the journal's pages and Aurora, who is unusually perceptive and a natural puzzle solver, is determined to follow where they lead, no matter what the cost. She confides in the only person she feels might help her interpret the clues: Donovan McCafferty, Jeremy's older brother and a guy she's always been drawn to...even against her better judgment. The two of them set out on a road trip of discovery and danger, heading westward along America's historic Route 66 in search of their siblings and the answers to questions they haven't dared to ask aloud. The mystery they uncover will forever change the course of their lives. ...But Now It Was Happening Again Decades later, in the summer of 2014, fifty-four-year-old Aurora receives a terrifying phone call-her adult son Charlie is missing-and this news inevitably brings the memories of her adolescent years rushing back. Haunting recollections she'd hoped to keep buried. Were the choices she'd made in her youth responsible for her son's disappearance now? And how on earth can she find him-quickly-so that she might be able to prevent the trauma of the past from repeating itself? EXCERPT: Pasadena, California Friday, August 15, 2014 No one else was home, of course, when I got the call that my twenty-eight-year-old son was missing. "The Benson Plastics people are already here for the eleven o'clock presentation, but Charlie isn't," Gloria, the company's secretary, informed me, her piercing voice tinged with an edge of hysteria. I'd only spoken with the woman on the phone twice before, but I got the distinct impression that her circuits were forever at risk of being overloaded. "He's not answering his cell?" I asked, surprised more than anything, actually, because both of my boys had their iPhones all but super-glued to their palms. "Aurora, I've tried to reach him for an hour and a half," Gloria insisted, the shrillness in her tone rising like high notes in a chorus and dancing for dear life on the other end of the line. "There's no answer at home. His cell goes straight to voicemail. And I even called his girlfriend because she's his first contact. She has no idea where Charlie is either. You're his second contact, so I hope you'll know where we can reach him." For a long, uncomfortable moment I was distracted by something ridiculous. The fact that I was only my son's second contact. Well, he was practically living with Cassandra, so I supposed it made sense that she was his first. But still... Then the deeper meaning of the secretary's comments seeped in. No one knew where Charlie was. I tried to be calm, reasonable, rational and not like some TV sitcom mother who'd overreact to everything. But, naturally, given my family's history, that was impossible. I fought back the panic and asked, "Was he at work yesterday?" Gloria said he was there when she'd left the office at 4:20. My mind began reeling with that ever-present parental worry, which spun a dangerous path from my head to my gut. The questions started, and it was like 1976 all over
About the Author: Marilyn Brant is a New York Times & USA Today bestselling and award-winning author of contemporary fiction, and she was named the 2013 Author of the Year by the Illinois Association of Teachers of English. She wrote ACCORDING TO JANE, the story of a modern woman who receives dating advice from the spirit of Jane Austen (October 2009); FRIDAY MORNINGS AT NINE, a tale about three suburban moms, their marriages and what happens a decade or two after the "Happily Ever After" (a Doubleday Book Club and Book-of-the-Month Club pick in 2010); and A SUMMER IN EUROPE, a novel about a woman's journey of self discovery as she travels through Europe with her adventurous aunt's Sudoku & Mahjongg Club (a Literary Guild and BOMC2 featured alternate in 2011, and a Rhapsody Book Club Top 20 Bestseller in "Fiction & Literature" in 2012), all women's fiction releases from Kensington Books. She's also a #1 Kindle
Nook Bestseller and has written a series of fun and flirty contemporary romantic comedies, available as original ebooks. ON ANY GIVEN SUNDAE and PRIDE, PREJUDICE AND THE PERFECT MATCH were Top 100 Bestsellers on both Barnes & Noble and Amazon. THE ROAD TO YOU, a coming-of-age romantic mystery (October 2013), was a Top 100 B&N Bestseller. PRIDE, PREJUDICE AND THE PERFECT BET (July 2014) is her latest romance, and many of her novels will soon be available as audiobooks from Post Hypnotic Press. Look for them in late 2014 and beyond. As a former teacher, library staff member, freelance magazine writer and national book reviewer for Romantic Times, Marilyn has spent much of her life lost in literature. She received her M.A. in educational psychology from Loyola University Chicago, dabbled in both fiction and art at Northwestern University, studied the works of Austen at Oxford University and is a Lifetime Member of the Jane Austen Society of North America. Her debut novel won RWA's prestigious Golden Heart Award(R) in 2007 and a number of awards since -- including the Single Titles Reviewers' Choice, the Booksellers' Best and the Aspen Gold. Marilyn lives in the northern Chicago suburbs with her family. When she isn't rereading Jane's books or enjoying the latest releases by her writer friends, she's working on her next novel, eating chocolate indiscriminately and hiding from the laundry. Visit her website: www.marilynbrant.com