Dog-Faced Girl, Annie, is working at a burlesque club, known for dancing with her face covered with a dog mask. Her father has recently passed away, so she finds herself at a bit of an impasse, and then she receives a letter that her mother, Vera, is dying. Annie sets out with her meager earnings to meet the woman for the first time, and this book follows her feelings on the journey as well as her charming and beguiling run-ins along the way. Annie's moods seem sometimes tenuous at best, especially when she gets to America and sees her beloved form of dancing is much different and referred to as 'stripping' here. I adored the cultural references and being in the head of this character- I felt for her entirely, and got so nervous during some of her encounters. This one was definitely hard to predict what came next, in a great way. Thanks to NetGalley and Astra Publishing House for the eARC. All opinions are my own.

The writing and character development in this novel is spectacular. It is a rare treat to read literary fiction about a sex worker and I hope this novel will prompt more representation of sex worker stories in literary fiction. There are parts in the middle that are not as strong as the beginning. I did put the book down a few times, but it is worth it to stick with it because it is a fantastic novel. An exciting debut from a writer to watch!

<i>Review of advanced copy from Netgalley</i>

Annie is not okay. She's a dancer struggling to make ends meet, with a perfunctory relationship, grieving the recent loss of her father and her absentee mother has written to say she's dying. So we're along for the ride as she drives across countries to Alaska to meet the mother she's never known, before it's too late.

Annie is a passive narrator, allowing her actions and those of people around her to tell the story. It's a beautiful technique as you feel the ennui and exhaustion of her every day life, whilst holding out hope that she has something good coming her way.

This was a beautiful slice of life but a little hard going so definitely make sure you're in the right headspace for it.

<i>Thanks again to Astra Publishing House and Netgalley for this ARC.</i>

This is a well-written and interesting story about complex women, trauma, sexuality, and travel. It starts out strong, but the middle lagged for me. I had to pick the book back up a few times, but I stayed the course, and it was worth it.


Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for the ARC.

The characters here, especially the protagonist/narrator, are very intriguing, and are at the center of this novel. The writing is sharp and interesting, and the plot is as well. The ending of the novel felt too rushed and neatly wrapped up however.

Roadshow felt like one long exhausted breath in the best way possible. Annie is messy, lonely, grieving, and honestly kind of drifting through her own life, which made the whole book feel painfully real to me. There’s this constant sense of movement without actually escaping anything. Even when she’s crossing the country, she still feels trapped inside herself.
I really loved how quiet this book was. Not much “happens” in a traditional sense, but emotionally it felt heavy the entire time. The roadside encounters, the awkwardness, the loneliness, the complicated feelings around family and womanhood... it all felt very intimate and human.
Also, the atmosphere of this book worked so well for me. Sticky, tired, melancholic road trip energy. It made me feel weirdly hollow after finishing it, which I mean as a compliment.

A melancholy road trip, fleeting menacing encounters.

Annie struggles to make ends meet while dancing in character as dog-face girl, she’s grieving the recent death of her father when her mother, who’d abandoned her as a baby, writes to say she is dying at home in Alaska.

With no funds, a borrowed car and a friend to house sit, Annie makes the road trip from the mid west, through Canada and into Alaska.

As an incredibly passive narrator, Annie is a little frustrating, but stick with the book as a reader you will get into the groove of her mindset - and it’s a rewarding beautifully told story.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher Astra Publishing House for the ARC, in exchange for an honest review.

I found Annie’s grueling, desperate road trip to Alaska to see her dying, estranged mother incredibly raw and moving. Her dangerous survival through survival-stripping and hitchhiking made this an unforgettable story of grit and homeland callings.

Roadshow is the perfect novel for anyone who loves a monomyth. This book is a contemporary quest in which Annie, our main character, goes on a cross-country roadtrip to meet her dying mother. 

The twist? Her mother ran away a few days after she was born, and they have never met. 

Annie has felt a lot of disdain for her mother and the abandonment, so she has no particular need to know her. However, there is a nagging part of her that will not allow her to not know her mother. As she has also lost her father recently, she does do a lot of reconciling with the fact that she is close to becoming an orphan and this plays and important part in her getting in a borrowed car and driving to her mother. 

Plot-wise, there is a lot going on. The novel, at times, takes darker turns as she tries to make money as a dancer and gets herself in some sticky situations. But none of it is overwhelming, as the novel is simply driven by the fulfilment of Annie’s goal. The roadtrip gives her plenty of time to think of her life - personal dreams and failings. In such a short novel, Nikki Ervice paints a full overview of her and her parents’ life.

This is quite a standout for a debut novel. The writing is excellent and the story feels complete from beginning to end. The whole reading experience is addictive and feels like a movie. A24 pick this up!

Thank you to Astra Publishing House x NetGalley for the advance copy in exchange for an honest review.

Grieving her father. Working as a dancer. Receives a letter that says the mother who abandoned her as an infant is now dying in Alaska, proceeds to get into a borrowed car and start driving.

What follows is one woman's exhaustion, longing, and reluctant hope.

The ache of the mother-daughter distance is handled with tenderness. The pacing flip flops a little in the middle, and the ending arrives faster than the build-up promised, but the atmospheric relationship between the duo is there, both in conscious and not. T

For those who are interested in introspective, character-driven fiction over plot-driven twists.

Super fast-paced and adventure packed, it really felt like this novel flew by! I enjoyed the progression of both facts of our main character, seeing how dog-faced girl and Annie evolved and changed throughout the trip to Alaska was very interesting!

Roadshow had me from the first sentence. Annie is such a fascinating woman and I loved being with her for this odyssey to Alaska. The writing was beautiful and visceral, the characters felt real and tangible, even the ones we spent little time with. I feel a closeness to Annie, wanting the things you never actually know if you’ll have, and then holding them for a few short seconds before they jump out of your hands and into someone else’s. I think this is a book I will continue to come back to, I don’t think I want to leave Annie and her world just yet!

This was much more plotty and fast paced than anticipated but I mean that in the best way. Just enough dose of weird mixed with the emotional. Annie was a wonderfully complex character that was easy to sympathize with. I loved the elements of the story that look at the stereotypes around dancing and stripping I think the author could have explored this even further. Overall a quick, enjoyable read.

This was a great debut from Nikki Ervice. The ending was bittersweet, yet satisfying. I'm looking forward to more from Ervice.

I did enjoy this book. The story is entertaining and you want to know how it will go further. The book has the feel of a strange roadtrip, it is well written and a great read. I would recommend it as an easy yet enjoyable read. Perfect for the summer or even has a way to lightly evade the return to the normalcy of life after vacation. Thank you Astra Publishing House for providing this book for review consideration via NetGalley. All opinions are my own.

Roadshow does a great job of showing the precariousness of a career in dance. Annie moves from Alaska to NYC where we meet her after her career in ballet has failed. She’s a restaurant server and a burlesque dancer (really she seems to do a semi-burlesque show at regular strip joints). Her only living family is her extremely estranged mother who is dying so she road-trips back home to see her.

As a service industry novel in the sexwork subgenre, Roadshow is excellent. We experience Annie’s depression, poverty, risk taking, social anxiety, and substance abuse. It’s a lot better than last year’s Soft Core for instance. But in between Annie’s work encounters as she travels through the Midwest and western Canada, it gets a little dry. I think it’s because Ervice structures the novel as a solo road trip. As a depiction of isolation it works, as a readable narrative it gets a little stale without another character in the car. It’s salvaged somewhat by a few texts with friends and some emails from the dying mom, but these feel like stock characters. So while most of the book is great, there are some dull moments in the car.

A short but touching story of a show girl, Annie (dog girl), whom you see grow as she traverses through across the country to meet her estranged mother. The language the author uses is very purposeful, and I found that there elements of Annie’s life that is very relatable. Especially, with the topic of career and obsession. I wish there were bits of it that were more fleshed out, and that some of the characters were given more life. I found that there were some loose ends for me, but maybe that just to show the open ended part of Annie’s relationship with herself, men, friends, and her parents. A very precisely detached world. Navigating relationship be hard when you were never taught how to.

A strange, melancholic and surprisingly gripping road trip story. I really liked Annie as a protagonist — messy, lonely and a little lost, but completely believable. The journey itself felt almost dreamlike at times, with a great sense of place and some genuinely tense and unsettling moments along the way. I especially enjoyed the way the book explores grief, family, identity and the complicated pull of home without making everything feel too neat or straightforward. A quiet but emotionally affecting debut.

🐎 roadshow by nikki ervice (pub date 11/10/2026!!)

annie is racing time as she treks across the country to meet her estranged mother on her death bed, dancing in strip clubs along the way to finance the trip. annie as a protagonist is messy and lost, hurting and still, hopeful, and her trek was full of side characters and side quests that had me laughing, cringing, and white-knuckling the book hoping she’d make it to her mother in time.

roadshow had me hooked from the very beginning. it tackles grief and longing and identity with humor and grace, and fans of softcore and shy girl are going to love this one. outstanding debut!

thanks to @astrahousebooks and the author for the advance copy in exchange for an honest review!

Roadshow was such an interesting and atmospheric debut. Annie is the kind of protagonist who feels a little lost even when she’s constantly moving, and I really liked following her on this strange, exhausting journey from New York to Alaska.

After losing her father, Annie receives a letter from the mother who abandoned her when she was a baby. Her mother is dying and wants to meet her, so Annie gets into a borrowed Buick and starts driving north. What follows is much more than a simple road trip. She’s dealing with grief, money problems, loneliness, dangerous situations, and all of the complicated feelings that come with finally having the opportunity to meet the person who left her behind.

I really liked Annie as a character, even when I didn’t always understand her choices. She’s messy and impulsive, and there’s a constant feeling that she’s just trying to figure out what she wants from her life. I especially liked the contrast between Annie and Dog-Faced Girl, her stage persona. Dancing is something she genuinely loves, but it’s also part of how she survives, and I thought the book did a good job showing both sides of that.

The mother-daughter aspect was probably my favorite part. Annie has spent her entire life carrying the absence of a mother she barely knows, so the idea of meeting her when she’s dying brings up so many complicated emotions. I liked that the book didn’t make those feelings simple. There’s anger, curiosity, resentment, grief, and even a little hope all mixed together.

The road-trip sections also gave the story this lonely, almost dreamlike quality. Annie keeps moving toward Alaska, but it never feels like she’s simply traveling from one place to another. It feels like she’s trying to understand herself and her past along the way.

My one issue was the pacing. The middle dragged a little for me, and there were times when I felt like the journey was repeating itself. I also wanted a little more time with the ending because after everything Annie goes through, it felt like things wrapped up pretty quickly.

Still, I thought this was a really strong debut. It’s atmospheric, strange, uncomfortable at times, and very character-driven. I especially liked how it explores what it means to inherit more than just a family history, and whether going back to where you came from can actually help you understand who you are.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the eARC in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

There was something about Roadshow that reminded me a little of Miranda July’s All Fours. The circumstances and challenges facing the women in these books are very different, but both have that same feeling of being carried along like a leaf in the wind: Getting in a car, heading somewhere, and allowing the road and the people they encounter to dictate what happens next.

Annie is already somewhat untethered when she learns that the mother who abandoned her as a baby is dying and wants to meet her. So she borrows a car and starts driving from New York toward Alaska, with very little money and not much of a plan beyond getting there.

What follows is a road trip that becomes progressively stranger, funnier, darker, and more dangerous. Annie has an almost alarming willingness to accept whatever comes next, and that passivity could have been frustrating. Instead, I found it oddly compelling. She drifts into situations that feel increasingly precarious -- and occasionally downright bizarre -- but each one seems to force her to become a little more capable of confronting the thing she's actually been avoiding.

Because ultimately, the wildest part of Annie's journey isn't the road trip at all. It's meeting her mother for the first time.

I loved the way Roadshow uses the physical journey to prepare Annie for that emotional one. All of those strange encounters, bad decisions, dangerous situations, and moments of unexpected kindness gradually strip away some of her uncertainty. By the time she reaches Alaska, the woman arriving there isn't quite the same woman who got into the car.

It's messy and weird and occasionally dark, but also surprisingly tender. A really strong debut, and exactly the kind of slightly off-kilter character-driven literary fiction I tend to enjoy.

Thank you to NetGalley, Astra House, and Nikki Ervice for providing an ARC!

Roadshow by Nikki Ervice is a fast-paced, adventurous story that holds considerably more depth than its description might suggest. It gave me a similar atmospheric vibe to Kristin Hannah’s The Great Alone, but with the characters and sequence of events completely flipped. Ervice’s writing is exceptionally strong, and her careful, intentional word choices perfectly capture the emotional weight of Annie’s experience.

The story follows Annie, a burlesque dancer trying to make ends meet in New York City. Having recently lost her father and having been abandoned by her mother as an infant, she is blindsided by a letter from her dying mother asking to meet and share her story. Annie embarks on a precarious trek from NYC to rural Alaska, funding her journey by finding places to dance along the way.

As she navigates a series of wildfires and harsh environmental challenges across northern Canada, her internal turmoil mirrors the external threats. Her childhood trauma has made forming deep connections difficult, forcing her to confront not only the brutal wilderness but also her own deeply rooted fears and emotional barriers.

The setting was easily one of my favorite parts of the novel. It is rare to find stories that are based in Canada, and even rarer to see them take place in the remote northern regions. Ervice did a fantastic job portraying the unforgiving harshness of the environment, utilizing the rugged landscape to parallel Annie’s internal struggles.

My only real issue with this book was the motel scene. It felt off-putting to read, and I ultimately didn't quite understand what it was meant to add to the overarching narrative. Despite that specific scene, it is a beautifully written and compelling journey of survival and self-discovery.

Roadshow follows Annie, a dancer who performs behind a dog mask at a club to make ends meet. After years of being estranged from her mother, Annie receives a letter telling her that Vera is dying. With her father recently gone too, she decides to make the long journey from the Midwest to Alaska to finally meet the woman who left her as a baby.

I really loved this one. Annie is a complicated, worn-down character, and I was totally invested in her as she made her way back to Alaska. Her journey is messy, difficult, and sometimes uncomfortable, but it never felt unnecessary. It all felt like part of understanding Annie and everything she had been carrying for years.

The writing was probably my favourite part. It's beautiful. There’s something so understated about it, yet it still leaves a lasting impression. I really enjoyed how the passive narration worked in this book.

This turned out to be such a beautiful, unusual, and moving read for me. It felt thoughtful and introspective, and I truly enjoyed every moment of it.

Thank you so much Astra House, Nikki Ervice & NetGalley for the #gifted earc. All opinions are my own.

I read the premise of the book and felt this would be an interesting story, and I was not disappointed. The story is centered on Annie, a bartender and dancer living in New York, who receives a letter from her dying mother. Vera, her mother, abandoned her and her Dad when Annie was just a baby. She never reached out to her until now. Annie is in her mid-thirties, and upon some pressure from her lover/coworker, she embarks on a cross-country road trip to meet her mother. With just short of $500.00, a lot of self-assurance, and her survival instincts, she takes us on an adventure of self-discovery (as we also get to know Vera), culminating in her arrival on an Alaskan island, where she was born. The hometown she left behind.

The book is truly a gem. It fluctuates between humor, sadness, courage, determination, and appreciation. At the end of the book, that is my best way to describe my feelings towards Annie: huge appreciation. There were definitely funny moments (including a ridiculous dog-faced mask that Annie uses on her dances), her numerous encounters with nice and not-so-nice people that she meets along the way, her reliance on herself to make the money needed to arrive at her destination, and her father's ashes waiting for her back in NY; there was a lot, but all done with great detail, and at the right times.

This is a debut novel, and the writer, Nikki Ervice, wrote with so much sweetness towards Annie, respect towards the incredible landscape, and care for the strangers found along the way. The end was fantastic, providing us closure, but at the same time, hope- hope for Annie's future.