Buckle up, y’all. Who doesn’t love the freedom of hitting the road? Beginning in coastal South Carolina, winding its way through the sun-drenched backwoods of Alabama and Mississippi, and landing in the epicenter of bluesy, kitschy Americana, Kim Wright’s Last Ride To Graceland is the quintessential Southern road trip novel. Cory Beth Ainsworth is thirty-seven, but rolls like she’s twenty-five, unencumbered by the trappings of typical adult life. She’s eking out a living singing the blues in roadside dive bars, single but for the occasional hookup with random losers, when she makes a startling discovery in an old shed belonging to her father. It’s an unusual car—a vintage Stutz Blackhawk—and

I won the dork lottery this year: my beloved local library system asked me to accompany them to this May’s BEA conference, held in Chicago. In case you aren't familiar with it, BEA stands for BookExpo America, and it defines itself as the leading book and author event for the North American publishing industry. This is where you go to mingle with rock star authors, listen to the country’s best editors rhapsodize about their selections for upcoming bestsellers, and load up your suitcase with as many free ARCs (advance reader copies) of pre-release books as you can tote. (In my case, I overestimated my ability to tote them and had to borrow a warehouse cart to wheel down the street to a FedEx.