The Road Trip

What You Want is a road trip novel about taking a journey both across America and into your own future. (It's also kind of a modern-day retelling of Henry James' Portrait of a Lady, but if, like most people, you've never read that book, it really doesn't matter). It's about the places Megan goes, the people she meets, and how her relationships with her friends Andrew and Jonathan -- and with herself -- change as the road unrolls beneath the wheels of their SUV. Watch the trailer on this page (beautifully narrated by Kathleen Hollett) to get a glimpse of Megan's journey.

When the book was first released in July 2015, Twitter followers could follow Megan's road trip adventure on Twitter @WhatUWantMegan. There were teasers but no spoilers, and you can read back through the characters' adventures by searching the hashtag #WYWroadtrip

The journey begins in St. John's, Newfoundland, where all three of the main characters live. There are a lot of things to love about St. John's (I've lived here all my life and love it!) but all Megan can see, as the story starts, are reasons to leave. There's the terrible weather, and the memories she can't wait to get away from. Any place on the map, she thinks, must be better than home.

They cross the US border near Bangor, Maine, where Megan gets some valuable advice from a taxi-driver, drug dealer, and homespun philosopher. As with all good advice, she chooses to ignore it.

In a small town in Virginia, our heroine visits the County Fair, rides a roller coaster, and cries in a bookstore.

Memphis, Tennessee is the home of Graceland. Is the shrine to Dead Elvis worth a detour to visit?

In Little Rock, Arkansas, the trio meets up with someone far more lost and desperate than they are, and they try to help.

And then, as soon as they cross the border into California, everything falls apart.