A Trip with Trouble by Diane Kelly

Available October 25, 2022

Rating: 5 bears

When the Dangerous Curves Motorcycle Club roars into the parking lot at the Mountaintop Lodge, Misty knows her week just got a lot more interesting but no one could have predicted just how much more interesting it would be.

The fall weather is perfect for a ride through the winding roads that sweep through the Blue Ridge Mountains. Dangerous? Sure. There are inattentive drivers, roaming wildlife, and sketchy strangers. But who caused the fatal accident that dethroned the queen of the club? Was it a member who may not be who she appears to be? A greedy stepson? The wild child of the group? Was it a terribly unfortunate accident? Or was it murder?

I have actually had the pleasure of riding some of these roads on a motorcycle so this book brought back some memories. The area is wild and gorgeous and very simple and the author does a nice job of capturing the beauty and charm of the area. The characters were a great representation of what a "biker gang" usually is, not a bunch of wild criminals as people sometimes assume but teachers, business people, retirees, and most of them as nice of people as you could hope to meet.

The mystery itself was great. There were a lot of potential suspects and lots of investigating to do since the killer could have been anyone in the group or in the victim's husband's family and Misty knows nothing about any of them. I loved seeing parts of the story from Yeti's perspective, it gave us a few clues that Misty didn't have. Misty is a fun main character, she's starting over again after a divorce and following her dream and she's got a hunky and sweet potential love interest in Rocky. Not only is Rocky handsome and kind and funny, he's also handy and helpful and comes with an adorable dog.

I did not read the first book in this series but I didn't miss a beat with this one, not even a stutter of "who is this" or "what happened there?" I think that's partially because the book didn't get bogged down with background at all, we get a glimpse of her former life and a snippet of how everyone ended up where they are and that's really all you need. I will say that after reading this book I definitely want to go back and read the first one.

Thank you to NetGalley for providing me with an ARC.