Mrs Nash’s Ashes is the first book by American author, Sarah Adler. Too late, Millicent Watts-Cohen learns that the love of her best friend’s life did not die in the Korean War. But now that Millie knows where to find Elsie Brown, she’s determined to reunite them. In her backpack she has a very small portion of Rose McIntyre Nash’s ashes, and she’s headed for the hospice of a Care Facility in Key West.

Millie is in a hurry: she doesn’t know how long Elsie will last. But Memorial Day weekend isn’t the ideal time to fly from DC to Miami. And then the flight is cancelled. She somehow ends up sharing a ride to Miami with dishy Hollis Hollenbeck, the frenemy(?) of her rotten ex-boyfriend.

Millie and Hollis have a history, even if he claims not to remember it: he rescued her once before, on the night she broke up with Josh Yaeger; and today, in the airport, he rescues her from an obnoxious fan (“acting when I was a kid means I’m always going to be considered public property in some ways. If I don’t pose for the pics, they take them stealthily”); and now, the ride to Florida.

Like Josh, Hollis is a writer in his spare time, with a non-fiction novel due out in November. Towards Millie, he’s not very nice, but is kind, he’s grumpy but cute. But he’s heading for a Miami friend-with-benefits to break his writers’ block, which sort of puts him off-limits, despite the attraction.

Instead of putting up with Millie’s 80’s playlist, Hollis asks about her mission in Key West, so she shares the story Rose told before she died, of being a pigeoneer in the US Navy, meeting and falling in love with a Navy nurse who swam like a mermaid: Elsie Brown. Hollis is highly sceptical about life-long love; Millie is an incurable romantic; she vows to prove him wrong.

The road trip doesn’t go quite as planned: a deer, an AirBnB room populated by twenty-five paint-by-numbers images of Jesus, and a small-town Broccoli Festival delay their progress, and Millie and Hollis get to know each other rather well. But there are trust issues: one gives it too easily, the other withholds. Will they reach Key West in time?

Adler’s characters endear themselves to the reader even as, at times, they irritate and frustrate. The dialogue is smart and snappy, with lots of innuendo, and Millie’s inner monologue, vocalised more often than she intends, is often hilarious. Anyone in the mood for a sweet, sexy romcom should check out Adler’s entertaining debut.
This unbiased review is from an uncorrected proof copy provided by NetGalley and Quercus.