After spending a year in prison, Ralph has explicit plans for his first night of tonight, someone will be held accountable. He goes to murderous lengths to learn the address of his former wife – the woman he blames for his fate. Determined to bring her to his idea of justice, Ralph’s next step is to travel from Florida to Ohio to find his ex-wife’s house on Mad River Road .
Also in Florida, Jamie Kellogg wakes from the agonizing nightmare of her mother’s funeral, and assesses her she’s a twenty-nine-year-old woman in a dead-end job, with an ex-husband in Atlanta, a married lover in the hospital, and a virtual stranger in her bed. But this stranger is everything the previous men in her life weren’ tender, attentive, and adventurous. After convincing Jamie to quit her miserable job and ditch her judgmental, perfectionist sister, Ralph proposes a romantic getaway. While Jamie wonders if this thrilling man might finally be her Prince Charming, they plan a road trip to visit his son, who lives with his mother on a street called Mad River Road.
As riveting and beguiling as Joy Fielding’s previous novels, Mad River Road is a tale of courage, truth, and the need to trust one’s instincts.