I tripped upon this book while searching for something else. I was immediately attracted by the cover, title, ratings, and number of reviews. I barely glanced at a one or two sentence synopsis and it only served to confirm what my gut had already proclaimed. "Winner here ! ". I like road travel novels though few meet my expectations. And I'm crazy about trains. So kudos to the author for not only marrying train and travel adventure, but especially for creating the fabulous "Pioneer Mother" private car. The protagonist here is Jack Marshall, a former college football player shelved due to injury early in his career. He becomes a bartender and jack (pun) of all trades to the wealthy owner of Mother, Horace Button. There are characters galore, coming and going throughout and an especilly saucy pair of chefs, Wanda and Giselle.

I must admit, I got a tad frustrated early on with the story, since I had no idea whatsoever where it was headed, and it seemed to slow a good bit about a third of the way through . But then things quickly got very interesting, with some rather explosive news, and particularly with the introduction of a third female. It takes place in current times but doesn't borrow from today's headlines thankfully. Read it. One last tip. My Kindle version had a very nice diagram of Mother's layout at the very end of the story. Wish I had noticed at Page 1. Look for it. "The Dining Car" might be a nice holiday gift..... ( )