It’s no exaggeration that life can change in the blink of an eye, and no one knows that better than Carrie Brinkley. IT Manager of Pilgrim Burgers, LLC, Carrie, is shocked to find her position is being eliminated. Doubtful as to her boss’s real intentions, she heads home only to receive a citation for an expired inspection sticker on her way. But, unfortunately, her string of bad luck doesn’t end there. Her boyfriend Trey is waiting in her driveway to announce that he is leaving town to return to Alabama and consequently breaking up with her. All Carrie wants at this point is to run away from it all, and when her bike calls, she answers.

Pedaling West, by E.A. Coe, follows the journey of one woman impacted in multiple ways by the 2020 pandemic. The face of the world, as Carrie Brinkley knows it, has changed, and she wants more than anything to run away from it all. So she concocts a plan to bike across the country, and even her parents’ words of wisdom can’t stop her from setting out to cover the nation from coast to coast between June and October.

Carrie’s story is unique in many ways yet typical of far too many others since 2020. Coe does a fantastic job of covering the mania that ensued when COVID-19 hit the United States. From misused funds to the countless ways our day-to-day lives changed at the drop of a hat, Coe covers it all in a short amount of time.

Carrie is a true force. She represents strength and determination on an entirely different level. Coe’s depiction of a woman on a mission is one to behold. As Carrie encounters one roadblock after another on her journey west, she meets each head-on and with renewed confidence. Her character development is unmatched. Though Coe’s story is fiction, I can easily picture this as a true story and one that would definitely inspire much-need confidence during the pandemic.

There exists within Coe’s writing an ideal amount of intrigue and mystery. It is difficult to peg Pedaling West as part of any one genre–it contains all the best parts of several. I enjoyed the blend of current events, action sequences, and the focus on Carrie’s character development throughout the book.

We won’t soon tire of reading about the many ways COVID has impacted our world, and E.A. Coe has gifted readers with a fantastic version of events in one neat package. I highly recommend Coe’s work to any mystery fan who appreciates a novel grounded in current events and is driven by a strong female main character.

Pages: 366 | ASIN: B0BTM1KRWF