Kevin Wilson delivers another thoughtful, off-kilter story that balances humor and heart with his signature style. Run for the Hills is both funny and unexpectedly moving, full of characters who are strange in all the best ways—flawed, real, and quietly resilient.

The book explores how we run from what scares us—and how sometimes, the running leads us right where we need to be. Wilson’s wit is sharp but never cruel, and his warmth sneaks up on you. It’s not a loud or flashy novel, but it lingers.

Overall, it’s a satisfying, quietly powerful read that sticks with you.

Road trip! This starts with Madeline "Mad" still living with her mother on their successful farm in Tennessee 20 years after her father left them. Then a man in a P T Cruiser announces to her he thinks he is her half-brother and her life turns upside down. It seems her father had left another family and another incarnation of himself before he met her mother, and after he left them, he started another family and another persona, and then left them. And who knew what after that. But Rube (the half-brother) thought there were at least 4 of the half-siblings, and he was traveling across country to meet them and see if he could track down their father and find out Why? And does she want to come along? She realizes, well, yes she does. And they are off on a rather madcap journey across the continent, gathering siblings along the way. This is a story about the characters, and about their relationship, no, their memories of their relationship with their father during idyllic childhoods that all ended in abandonment. The writing is lovely, the characters original, and the emotion very real. The trip is fun, but it's all about the people. Highly recommended.

I received a free DRC of this book through Netgalley. I have previously read at least 2 other books by this author, but this is by far, my favorite book of his. The book is about a man who is a serial monogamist, and has one child with each woman, but leaves when the child is around 9 years old. The children (40s, 31, 21 and 11 years old) find out about each other and go on a road trip to find him. The relationship between the children is at once strange and familiar just as I'm sure being in that situation IRL would be. The children must each deal with abandonment issues as well as suddenly not being an only child. I found this book emotional and bursting with humor.

Not my usual romance, but it sounded like an interesting story, so I really wanted to read it. And I was right. It’s a very good story. Unique. Funny. Quirky. Great characters who come together under odd circumstances to build a relationship with each other and possibly confront the father who left them all behind.

Thanks to Ecco for this ARC in exchange for my honest review. Run for the Hills is out NOW!

4.5

I love Kevin Wilson and his quirky characters and couldn't wait to read this one, and it did not disappoint!

Madeline "Mad" Hill is busy with her life, running an organic farm with her Mother. Her Dad left them twenty years ago, just disappeared without a trace. One afternoon a strange man, Reuben "Rube", in a PT Cruiser shows up at the farm and tells her he's her half brother. He was also left by his father, thirty years ago. Since the death of his Mother, he hired a private detective to track him down. He has tracked him down to California, and also discovered at least 2 other half siblings. He asks Mad to go along for a road trip to meet the other half siblings and eventually meet up with their father. Along the way they all tell stories about their Dad, who just seems to totally reinvent himself into a different man in each life, then just leaves it all behind and starts over again. They get to know each other and try to figure out how they will fit into each others lives too. They just all may be what they need in their lives.

It's a sibling story unlike any I've ever read. It was zany, funny and also very heartfelt. I'm not sure how Wilson comes up with these characters, and as crazy as they are, they just work! And they also worm their way into your heart. I think he is a true gem in the literary world and I will read anything he writes!

Thank you to @netgalley and @ecco for this #gifted copy. It's out now, so do yourself a favor and put it on your Summer reading list!

Many thanks to NetGalley, Harper Collins | Ecco for gifting me a digital ARC of the new book by Kevin Wilson. All opinions expressed in this review are my own - 4.5 stars!

Mad Hill and her mom have been working their farm in Tennessee for 20 years, since the day her day left them without a word. But she's okay. Then Rube shows up to the farm in a PT cruiser and tells Mad that she is his half-sister. He also was left behind by their father. But he hired a detective to track down his dad and discovered there are more half-siblings. He convinces Mad to go on a road trip to meet them and find their dad.

As you would expect from Kevin Wilson, this book is full of fun, quirky characters with heart. The storyline is intriguing - their dad seemingly became a new man each time he left his family. Would the siblings ever find out why he left each of them? Would their lives have been different if he would have stayed or at least stayed in touch? What will happen when they find him? Lots of interesting themes but it's also just a fun, zany road trip - and who doesn't need one of those this summer?

Kevin Wilson’s books are always fun to read, even when addressing challenging topics. His latest, Run for the Hills, is no different!

This one follows a group of half siblings who meet for the first time and are road tripping to track down their father who they haven’t seen in years. I loved watching the siblings fall in love with each other and truly care for one another. This one wasn’t as quirky as his other reads but I found it just as endearing.

The ending was fitting, even if I felt like I wanted more out of the father figure. An epilogue would have been delightful too for a bit more closure. It’s a quick read- I read it in a day!

Thank you NetGalley and the publisher for the arc.

Kevin Wilson does it again. His novels feature oddball situations, quirky and lovable characters, and a lot of heart. This new offering checks all the boxes.

Run For the Hills focuses on a road trip in a PT Cruiser, newly discovered siblings, and a missing dad. We get most of the story from the perspective of Madeline "Mad" Hill, a farmer in Tennessee. Her world is upended when a stranger turns up at the farm with a bizarre request. He's her half brother and wants her to join him on a quest to find their father. And the other half siblings along the way.

The siblings experience the expected range of emotions as they get to know each other, traveling together across the country. They're unique in both temperament and calling, formed over the time each spent with their father, who himself was a different man to each of them. The road trip was laugh out loud funny, bizarre and a little sad. Luckily they had each other!

My thanks to NetGalley and Ecco for the Advance Reader Copy. (pub date 5/13/2025)

While I don’t think any of his books will ever top <b>Nothing to See Here</b> for me I still so so very much enjoy his stories!!

Quirky characters you’ll love, an odd(ish) premise, a newly found dysfunctional family, and deeply relatable moments👏

Imagine taking a road trip across America with the half siblings you just found out you have to confront the father who left you all?? YUP!! And what a journey it was! I could so easily see this becoming a movie🤭🚗

I did want more from the ending but honestly I had a blast reading this and it was the perfect blend of humor and heart!🙂‍↕️

In "Run for the Hills," Kevin Wilson crafts a poignant and entertaining road trip narrative that showcases his talent for creating memorable, offbeat characters who feel remarkably real. The novel follows three siblings whose lives have been unmistakably shaped by their father's deep involvement in each of their very different childhoods, followed by abrupt abandonment as he moves on to his next family.
What makes this novel particularly affecting is Wilson's refusal to offer easy resolutions. Instead, he presents a nuanced portrayal of how siblings can be both strangers and the only people who truly understand each other. "Run for the Hills" ultimately celebrates the messy, complicated ways families heal—not in dramatic reconciliations, but in small moments of tentative connection.

I am a huge fan of Kevin Wilson’s previous novels, so as soon as I saw this upcoming title, I knew I’d be in for a treat.

Wilson’s books tend to have a certain blend of cozy quirkiness, more than a touch of dark humor, and really unique “found family” character dynamics. Run For the Hills combines all of that plus a messy unexpected road trip plot and a host of extremely lovable characters connected in a really specific way- they’re all half siblings and strangers to one another, trying to track down their estranged father.

Their father, Charles Hill, has the really problematic tendency to abandon his family for a new life, wife, and kid to match each of his subsequent wild dreams. It’s hard to be excited about meeting this dad and finding out what happens after that- how does a man like that redeem himself? Throughout the novel I wondered how the conclusion of the road trip and the story would come about. It’s hard to pin down what exactly I’d want as an ending for a story like this. I think the resolution we got was appropriate enough, but I would have love to see more of these characters getting to know one another and determining what their futures would look like. I just wanted a little more for this cast of characters I grew very attached to. Is it wildly optimistic of me to hope for a sequel? And a movie adaptation?

Overall, this was a really fun and hilarious book. Kevin Wilson really has a knack for warming my heart without being overly wholesome. I’d recommend Run For the Hills to those who have enjoyed any of Kevin Wilson’s previous books as well as fans of Annie Hartnett (who also has a zany found-family road trip novel out this spring!) and the movie Little Miss Sunshine.

Thank you to NetGalley and Ecco for the opportunity to be an early reader for this title, which is available now!

I forgot how much I love this author’s writing. Well, I didn’t forget, I just needed to read his latest and was instantly reminded how quirky his characters are and how wildly imaginative and off-beat the plot while at the same time a tender story unfolds.

Unbeknownst to Madeline who thought she was a single child, turns out her father, who is not the man she knew, has left behind others, whom she will come to know when she embarks on a road trip with Reuben, who claims to be her half-brother.

In these pages, it’s not just an adventure or discovery of family, it’s an exploration of the power of intense emotions, acknowledging the pain and accompanying feelings, and how it shaped who they became. What Wilson does so well is take ordinary words and turn them into something extraordinary, leaving this reader tickled. Somehow a character can go from staring at a stranger to an “afternoon weirdo.” Equally touching is discovering newfound love so profound it can cause an aching vulnerability, which leads to a better understanding of how people cope or perhaps don’t. This and more are what Madeline and Reuben contemplate as they embark on a discovery to find their father and other siblings, while the magical sense of pride they feel meeting another person related by blood, leaves them in utter awe and equally dumbfounded by their father’s absence.

Heart-filling and equally heart-piercing. My kind of story.

Thank you to NetGalley and ECCO.

𝑰𝒇 𝒉𝒆 𝒘𝒂𝒔𝒏’𝒕 𝒈𝒐𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒕𝒐 𝒄𝒐𝒎𝒆 𝒃𝒂𝒄𝒌, 𝒊𝒕 𝒘𝒂𝒔 𝒂𝒔 𝒊𝒇 𝒉𝒆 𝒘𝒂𝒔 𝒅𝒆𝒂𝒅. 𝑨𝒏𝒅 𝒊𝒇 𝒔𝒉𝒆 𝒇𝒐𝒖𝒏𝒅 𝒂𝒏 𝒐𝒃𝒊𝒕𝒖𝒂𝒓𝒚, 𝒓𝒆𝒂𝒍 𝒑𝒓𝒐𝒐𝒇, 𝒘𝒉𝒂𝒕 𝒘𝒐𝒖𝒍𝒅 𝒊𝒕 𝒉𝒂𝒗𝒆 𝒎𝒂𝒕𝒕𝒆𝒓𝒆𝒅? 𝑰𝒕 𝒘𝒂𝒔 𝒃𝒆𝒕𝒕𝒆𝒓 𝒕𝒐 𝒍𝒆𝒕 𝒉𝒊𝒎 𝒍𝒊𝒗𝒆 𝒊𝒏 𝒕𝒉𝒐𝒔𝒆 𝒆𝒕𝒉𝒆𝒓𝒆𝒂𝒍 𝒔𝒑𝒂𝒄𝒆𝒔 𝒖𝒏𝒕𝒐𝒖𝒄𝒉𝒆𝒅.


In Kevin Wilson’s latest novel, when children are abandoned by their father, Charles Hill, they discover he has left them with differing versions of himself. More bewildering, half-siblings exist, children like breadcrumbs, who know nothing about one another. The novel opens with Madeline “Mad” Hill (32), working the organic farm with her mother Rachel that was started when her father was around, before he vanished from their lives. Their hard work has been featured in popular magazines, aside from regulars, new people are not uncommon, so when a man shows up in a PT Cruiser and asks her if she is Madeline Hill she never imagines he would drop news leaving her stunned. He tells her he is her older half-brother, and his name is Ruben Hill. It has been thirty years since he last saw their father, for her, over twenty. Whether it is a good omen or bad, she doesn’t know yet, but finally she has someone beside her. As the story of Ruben’s life unfolds, so too does the early version of her father, who Charles or “Chuck” was with Ruben and his mother. Nothing aligns with the version she knows, not even his place of birth, but both Ruben and Mad have carried themselves as the person Charles was trying on for size while he was living with each of them. Those people couldn’t be any more different.

Lonely Ruben convinces her to ‘re-create the migration’ of their father, meet the children “half-siblings” he left behind, and get to know one another along the way. Thinking about the heaviness, the pain of being left behind, she feels it is the one thing all his children likely have in common. Maybe together they can understand what made him take flight, escape responsibility, create families with no intention of seeing them grow up. Not even giving them a chance at a relationship with him, leaving barely a trace, only an imprint of him upon each child. But as they travel, they meet with more mystery until they are sick and tired of the quest. How can one man be a farmer, writer, filmmaker, even a coach with a star athlete child? Who was/is Charles and who are they without him? Did they even ever need him, this stranger who cannot hold on long enough to complete his projects, who seems to only enjoy his creations at the begining?

The beauty of the novel relies on the children, at different stages of their lives drawing together, while Charles is nothing more than a flicker. What answers can he really supply that will change the hole he left? “It’s complicated” doesn’t begin to describe the reality they now all face, but at heart a new sort of family could be born, one that can hold steady whether Charles continues his disappearing acts, or roots himself in place.

It’s a unique story about family, abandonment, and the stories we tell ourselves, how we become under the shadow of another. It gives us pause to think about how we define ourselves, whether with the weight of those present or the burden of those who’ve left. While there is dysfunction in Charles, his children are wonderful. Kevin Wilson takes ordinary people and places them in unusual circumstances, and it always makes for engaging reads. I’ve been in a weird state of mind lately; this was a fitting novel.

Yes, read it.

Published May 13, 2025

Ecco

Thank you to Ecco for the ARC of Run for the Hills

Kevin Wilson has done it again! Created a quirky premise of a story with characters I couldn't help but absolutely love! Mad and Rube and Pep and Tom. The unlikeliest grouping of people and siblings thrown together in a very strange twist of fate. There wasn't anything particularly enchanting about any of the characters, but I loved every single one of them in their own way! Each of these characters had depth and personality beyond surface level. They all had very complex emotions along with complex personality traits, largely related to their dad leaving them. This isn't a situation that most people would run across in their lifetime, however, it does deeply explore the idea of sibling relationships and handling a parent that is struggling with mental illness. Wilson has created a story with humor and lots of love. It is the true epitome of found family.

Run For The Hills by Kevin Wilson hit the shelves today. Happy Book Birthday! I had loved Wilson’s previous book, Nothing to See Here, so I was excited to see if he would offer up another quirky, interesting and entertaining read that people will be talking about for years this time. He did.
‌
Rube started this epic road trip in Boston where he set out to find the father who left him and his mother thirty years ago. Driving a rented PT Cruiser, he stops at a farm in Tennessee to meet his half sister, Mad. Mad has been helping her mother run a successful organic farm since her dad left her twenty years ago. Rube informs her that they share the same father and that there are other siblings to meet along their way to California. He convinces her to go with him and this journey of discovery beings.
‌
Each sibling adds to the story of their dad and the very different lives they had with each version of the same man they knew. They learn about each other and themselves while on the way to California to confront Mr. Hill.
‌
This made me laugh, and more importantly, it contained some of my favorite things- books, the University of Oklahoma, and Sonic Drive-In. The four main characters were well written and their connection was unique and believable. Loved it!
‌
Thanks so much @EccoPublishers and @NetGalley for my copies of this book.

Madeline Hill, a farmer in rural Tennessee, is shocked when a man arrives claiming to be her half-brother. What follows is a hilarious and sometimes emotional cross-country adventure in a car you’ve probably forgotten about. I don’t want to give away anything else, but you will find yourself laughing and feeling all the feels while reading this one.

I don’t know what I was expecting when I picked up this book, but I really enjoyed the cast of characters and their adventures on their drive to California. It’s definitely worth a read.

Many thanks to NetGalley and Ecco for an advanced e-copy of this book.

Happy pub day to Run for the Hills by one of my absolute favorites, @KevinWilsonAuthor! I’m so grateful to @eccobooks for an e-arc and to HarperAudio for an ALC.

Madeline Hill’s dad left her and her mom twenty years ago, and since then she’s been helping her mom run their farm. One day, out of nowhere, Rueben Hill shows up (in a PT Cruiser of all things) claiming her dad left him and his mom first thirty years ago. He’s her half brother and he’s hired a detective to locate their other half siblings sprinkled all across the U.S. and their dad. Rueben is going on a road trip to find all of them and asks Madeline to join him.

I can see how this book might not be up everyone’s alley. But if it is up your alley, you’re going to love it. I’m not sure what to say in a review to help you figure out which camp you fall in. I will say this one is not super plot heavy—although things, some of them crazy, happen. But the characters are so well-drawn and specific it’s hard to believe they’re not entirely real. As always, the author does such a beautiful job of not judging his characters—imperfect as they might be. Even with the insanity of the set up, everyone in the story is treated with a degree of kindness I wish we could demand in the real world. Wilson also has a way with detail that is incredibly special. There are clearly themes of what makes a family at the root of this story as well as how one parent can define who we become, I absolutely adored being in this world.

Madeline (“Mad”) Hill and her mother enjoy some celebrity after being featured in national magazines for the organic produce that they grow on their farm in rural Tennessee. One afternoon at their roadside stand, Mad is approached by a stranger “dressed like a man who designed golf courses, who owned four different Subway franchises.” Mad assumed he had seen one of the articles, but the man introduced himself as Reuben (“Rube”) Hill, Mad’s half-brother, claiming that they shared a father.

Rube and Mad compared notes, and their father’s narrative was inconsistent. While he was married to Rube’s mother, he went by the name Charles Hill, who was raised in Boston, sold insurance, worked in advertising, and was the writer of detective novels, much like Rube who is a successful mystery author, but who has been terribly lonely since his mother died. When he lived with Mad’s mother, he went by the name Chuck Hill and claimed to have grown up on a chicken farm in Maine. He bestowed on his daughter a love for the land, but a fear of relationships: “Mad had avoided being left, she supposed, by not having anyone arrive.”

Rube encourages Mad to join him — in his rented PT Cruiser — on his quest to connect with the other children sired by their serial dad and then to confront him in California where the private investigator whom Rube had hired said he now lived. Rube and Mad take off on their crazy family road trip and, because this is a Kevin Wilson book, it is filled with charm and whimsy and humor. When Mad reconciles herself to the idea of accepting three half siblings into her life, she reasons: “It was nice to know that it wasn’t a hundred. A hundred kids? Thanksgiving? It would have been a nightmare.” As the journey continues, these abandoned children begin to savor their makeshift family and to realize that maybe it was enough. Thank you Ecco and Net Galley for an advance copy of Wilson’s latest novel which will delight his legion of fans.

I am posting on release day! It's a shocker. But what is more shocking is how gentle this novel is, considering it's dealing with an awful lot of big issues. These siblings all have their own wackiness, whether due to their father running off on all of them (separately! At very different times!) or because that's how the world works. I think this is more gentle than many of Wilson's novels, and I'm not sure I loved it as much as the three of his books I've read previously. Nothing to See Here has really stuck with me! That said- this is a road trip novel. There are adventures. There is simplicity and complication in learning to love and forgive... or at least move forward. I liked the relationships most and the plot was propulsive.

Four stars. Go on a road trip with these new-found brothers and sisters and you, too, will wonder how a man can reinvent himself so many times, and be such a good dad, while being the worst.

I've enjoyed several of author Kevin Wilson's books - I really appreciate his irrelevant humor! Happy to have gotten my hands on his latest, "Run for the Hills", which is a big-hearted U.S. road trip about a group of half-siblings of very different ages in search of their long-lost and deadbeat Dad. I also really liked that it was set in the pre-iPhone days of 2007 when paper maps were still in use & a PT Cruiser was still a cool car. (I could also live w/o the basketball, but ok). Overall a good look at what really makes a family and I did likethe way all the storylines wrapped up (my biggest peeve however were the very long chapters, especially for the page count). My sincere thanks to Net Galley and the publisher for my advance readers copy.