The Road to Tender Hearts is aptly named, possibly the most big-hearted novel of 2025. Author Annie Hartnett first came on my radar in 2022 when she published Unlikely Animals, which turned out to be one of my favorites that year. When I saw that she had a new one out, I tried to temper my expectations; not many authors can write more than one novel so hugely imaginative, genre defying, darkly funny, and yet heartwarming. And it’s true; not many can. As it happens, however, Hartnett can, and she has.

My thanks go to NetGalley and Random House Ballantine for the review copy; however, this is one of those rare instances where I would have paid full cover price if that was the only way for me to read it. It will be available to the public Tuesday, April 29, 2025.

Like Hartnett’s previous novel, The Road to Tender Hearts has quirky characters and at least one sentient animal with an internal monologue, but the structure of the plot is not as complex—a thing I am grateful for, near bedtime—and there are fewer characters and settings. Both are magical, and the distinctions show that Hartnett is not one to write the same book, more or less, over and over. She has more imagination than that; she may have more imagination than ten or twelve ordinary people.

Our protagonist, to the extent we can identify just one, is PJ Halliday. PJ was living the good life, a happy family, steady work, and the esteem of his neighbors in Pondville, Massachusetts, but then his elder daughter, Kate, died when she was eighteen, and PJ, and his marriage, came apart. Since then, he’s been doing two things: drinking, and giving away chunks of his huge lottery prize to every sad sack and every player that comes with an outstretched palm. But all that is about to change.

The son of PJ’s late brother, from whom he was estranged, dies, along with his wife, leaving two elementary aged children without a home or family. It seems that PJ is the only relative these little tikes have. Luna and Ollie aren’t sure that PJ can be trusted, since their own parents and skeezy grandpa never could be, but he actually has some strong if rusty parenting skills, and he is determined to clean up his act for them. There’s just one other thing he needs to do: his old high school flame, Michelle Cobb, has recently become a widow. He never forgot her, and now he intends to drive to her retirement community, Tender Hearts, in Arizona and see if he can try again with her. Two little kids in the car? No problem. And now, add his (still living) daughter Sophie, who figures she’d better keep an eye on him and the tots, and Pancakes, the cat that has adopted him.

Pancakes has a unique talent: he can tell who is about to die, and he goes to them, so that oftentimes, their last breaths are taken as they stroke a purring kitty. And so, Pancakes goes on the trip too, but every now and then, he disappears and is found on the lap of some elderly individual in poor health. (Or, not elderly. Hey, Pancakes just knows.) It’s no coincidence that the story begins and ends with Pancakes.

PJ is not always the best decision maker, and there are several times when I wince at the choices he makes. Sometimes, someone else swoops in and fixes his blunders, and at other times, they’re left hanging in the wind, and we have to wait to see how they will affect the story’s outcome.

Every single aspect of this book is golden. The dialogue flows naturally, and the internal monologues, all told in the third person omniscient, are authentic and full of character. In short—and I rarely say this—there’s not one single thing about this glorious redemption tale that I would change.

Highly recommended to everyone that loves fiction, and that has a beating heart.