**The Truth Is in the Detours**

*Mara Williams*

4.5⭐

*an advance read*
**Pub date: 8/12/2025**
Read: August 2025
print | kindle | audio

Thank you to NetGalley and Lake Union for the digital review copy in advance. This one hit shelves on August 12th and I’m already feeling a re-read. Good thing I have an advance copy of the author’s next book (publishing in February 2026) waiting on my Kindle.

Ophelia Dahl is back in San Diego packing up her childhood home. Her father died a few weeks ago and she can’t keep floating the mortgage. She needs to sell. As she works through her dad’s accumulation of possessions, she finds a single page of a document—a termination of parental rights—from the year after her mother supposedly died. Her neighbor Beau, a childhood friend whom she’s been estranged from since graduating high school of course finds this moment the perfect one to check on her. What follows is a road trip together, a revisit to old wounds, and a search for the truth.

There was so much about this I loved. The premise alone? I mean, what a heart-wrenching opening. I felt the grief in my bones and my family saw the evidence in the tears streaming down my face, especially in some of the closing chapters.

Here are a few of the highlights for me:

🚗 Starting with a slightly silly one, the musical references in this book brought a smile to my face. Beau tells Phe that her are nonsensical as they shift genres and decades. I have a feeling Beau would have the same critique of playlists I create. The funny thing though is that I’m probably a combination of both of these characters. Because if I’m not listening to a “whiplash” playlist, I’m probably listening to something Beau would like—sad, folk, indie, dad rock (the key word is sad 😂).

🚗 I’ve done this roadtrip in reverse. While Beau and Phe drive from San Diego up toward the Bay Area hitting his home in Oakland/Berkeley, continuing to Chico and Fort Bragg, I have driven from the San Joaquin Valley down toward Los Angeles and San Diego more times than I can count. Their stop in the tiny town of Lebec? Totally my gas stop before starting the Grapevine trek. These are places I know and I could relate to all the references to weather, fires, and more.

"California is a fickle lover—gorgeous, tempestuous, alluring, unforgiving."

Mara Williams knows what she’s talking about.

🚗 The entire concept for Beau’s book interested me. Phe joins this road trip with the possibility of seeking out her mother, but his mission is to interview people who are willing to confess their deepest secrets and untruths. Beau wants to know why people keep secrets, how it changes history and families. Fascinating.

🚗 The opposites attract aspect and shared history between these two characters was believable and made me sad at the same time. Their falling out back in high school was clearly because they’d drastically misunderstood each other and over. Phe felt like she’d never be smart enough. Beau thought he’d never be popular enough. Both of them felt abandoned. I mourned the years they missed out on friendship, but watching their journey back to one another was a true joy as a reader.

🚗 One thing I hated? I raged at Phe’s supposed “best friends,” as I think Beau was doing too, so I wasn’t alone. I completely see their purpose in the book’s plot, but I won’t say I didn’t type out “Oh, hell no!” at one point in my Kindle notes.

Overall, I loved this story. It was a heartfelt mixture of grief and joy and second chances. It was a romance, but it was truly in all the detours and side-quests that Phe and Beau found their way.