We’re Michelle Moore and Reesa Herberth, and if you know our writing, you probably know that we’ve won awards for our science fiction and mystery romance.  (That was the same book, for the record.)  What you might not expect from us is a New Adult rom com… but that’s exactly what our new book, Detour, is.  Sort of.  Mostly?  Definitely, yes.

Detour is the book of our heart.  It’s a story we’ve always wanted to tell- and one we’ve been telling each other, in some fashion, for as long as we’ve known one another.  It’s pretty funny in some places, and sad in others, and delightfully quirky throughout.  It’s the story of Ethan and Nick, two strangers on a summer road trip.  One of them is running from ghosts, and the other is looking for them.  Somewhere along the way, they find themselves in love, and in possession of a plush Titanic.

But not necessarily in that order.

Ethan’s East Coast Roadtrip of Weirdness, Oddities, and Food

 

Ethan has an east coast road trip of weirdness and oddities already planned out.  Despite never having been a boy scout, he believes in being prepared.  Maine to Florida or Florida to Maine?  This question needed some thought, but he eventually decided that ending up in Key West was the better option.  Sun, palm trees, and boating.  Cute guys in Speedos.

 

So Maine… Home of Wild Blueberry Land and the world’s largest blueberry.  Muffins, scones, ice cream, cookies, and plenty of coffee.  Even better, a photo op with a huge throne of blueberries, topped with a moose head!  He can’t wait to post pictures of Nick sitting in it.  Wild Blueberry Land sounds like the perfect mixture of the World’s Largest Pistachio and Pie Town– two of the stops in Detour.  Ethan just hopes the blueberry will be less, well, stressful.

 

Massachusetts has a Titanic Museum, but there’s no way it can compare to Ethan and Nick’s visit to the one in Pigeon Forge, if for no other reason than a sad lack of bright yellow Titanic stuffies (it now has shared custody between Ethan and Nick).  So Massachusetts became a toss-up between Salem and Fall River.  Ethan went with Lizzie Borden.  The Borden House is a bed and breakfast, and that was just too tempting to pass up.  He is, of course, completely aware that Nick will choose sleeping in the car rather than in a murder house.  Blankets will be provided.

 

Maryland is kind of a cheat.  The National Museum of Health and Medicine in Silver Spring was a frequent visit while in high school.  Where else could two teenagers go to see such ephemera as the giant hairball removed from a 12 year old girl’s stomach, shorts found in a shark’s stomach, and a computer game that lets you be Abraham Lincoln’s physician (“Oops, you killed him”).

 

Bigfoot, ghosts, river monsters, the Feegee Mermaid?  The Cryptology and Paranormal Museum in Littleton, North Carolina has it all.  Ethan is all about the ghosts…  Nick still hasn’t forgiven him for the little tiny handprints on the car.  But scarier than dead children pushing cars?  South Carolina’s South of the Border.  A 2 AM visit to the cinderblock bathrooms, with their buzzing fluorescent lights and mysterious stains on the floor is as terrifying as it gets.  Don’t get drawn in by a smiling Pedro and his neon sombrero.  It’s all a lie.

 

Georgia is the land of peaches, and as such, no roadtrip would be complete with a stop at Peach World.  Giant peach fritters, peach slushies, hard peach cider, and best of all, non-stop opportunities for jokes about peaches looking like butts.

 

To tie up this epic north to south adventure, a visit to Robert the evil doll in Key West.  Ethan says he’s no fool, so there won’t be any pictures.  Just some spooky viewing, some time in the sun, a little snorkeling, and then home to reality.  At least until the next trip… but Nick gets to plan that one.

About Detour

Ethan Domani had planned the perfect graduation trip before tragedy put his life on hold. Smothered by survivor’s guilt and his close-knit family, he makes a break for the open road. He doesn’t know what he’s looking for, but he’s got the whole summer to figure out who he misses more: his boyfriend, or the person he thought he was. It’s just him and his memories . . . until he almost runs over a hitchhiker.

Nick Hamilton made some mistakes after his younger brother died. His violent ex-boyfriend was the most dangerous, and the one that got him shipped off to Camp Cornerstone’s pray-the-gay-away boot camp. His eighteenth birthday brings escape, and a close call with an idiot in a station wagon. Stranger danger aside, Nick’s homeless, broke, and alone. A ride with Ethan is the best option he’s got.

The creepy corners of roadside America have nothing on the darkness haunting Ethan and Nick. Every interstate brings them closer to uncharted emotional territory. When Nick’s past shows up in their rearview mirror, the detour might take them off the map altogether.

AMAZON

About Reesa Herberth

Reesa Herberth grew up in Hawaii, tried Arizona for a few years, and eventually settled in the D.C. area, where they have trees and rain.

She’s held a variety of crazy writer jobs, including book and video store manager for a defunct chain of music shops, office goddess for an artisan ice cream maker, cheese-cup scrubber at an organic goat dairy, high school secretary, and dye-stained proprietress of a small yarn and fiber business.

When not writing, she can usually be found reading, gardening, cooking, or spinning yarns of another sort entirely. She often resents her need for sleep.

With Michelle Moore, she is the author of the Ylendrian Empire books, including The Balance of Silence, the award-winning space opera caper, The Slipstream Con, and Peripheral People, a sci fi thriller with psychics and squishy feelings, coming soon.

Connect with Reesa:

• Website: michelleandreesawrite.com, and ylendrianempire.com
• Email: YlendrianEmpire@gmail.com
• Goodreads: goodreads.com/S_Reesa_Herberth

About Michelle Moore

Michelle Moore has a well-documented obsession with travel, television, frappaccinos and flamingos. These, however, come in a distant second to her love of writing. Most evenings she can be found huddled over her laptop at the local Starbucks, dividing her time between actually writing and pretending to be a barista.

While Michelle would like to claim child prodigy status, the truth is that she’s only been scribbling words on paper since she was six.  However, she’s moved beyond those initial Dick and Jane story knock-offs to the Ylendrian Universe, a much more rewarding and enjoyable choice of subject matter.

Connect with Michelle:

• Website: ylendrianempire.com and michelleandreesawrite.com
• Email: MichelleMooreWrites@gmail.com
• Goodreads: goodreads.com/Michelle_Moore

To celebrate the release of Detour, Reesa and Michelle are giving away a $20 gift card to the Ripped Bodice! If the winner is outside the US, it will be a $20 Amazon gift card instead. Leave a comment with your contact info to enter the contest. Entries close at midnight, Eastern time, on May 12, 2018. Contest is NOT restricted to U.S. entries. Thanks for following along, and don’t forget to leave your contact info!