I didn’t get to Roswell while I was in New Mexico, alas, but an excuse to return another time.

The Road to Roswell actually starts when Francie flies into Albuquerque then drives the three hours to Roswell to to help a high-maintenance friend with her wedding, which happens to coincide with the annual UFO Festival, as Frankie learns involuntarily from the long line of people waiting to rent a car at the airport.

In Roswell, Frankie momentarily escapes the chaos of wedding planning by running back to her car to grab something, and finds herself abducted – in her own car – by an alien. The alien insists that she drive it to a particular place – which quickly becomes places, as the two engage in an epic road trip around New Mexico – and eventually Las Vegas – picking up passengers along the way: an insistent hitchhiker; an alien enthusiast who gets more than he bargained for; a sweet elderly lady on the lam from her senior outing to the casino; and the owner of a camper branded “Outlaw” who is addicted to Westerns. Together they need to figure out what the increasingly desperate – and maddeningly incommunicative- alien needs, so they can go back to their lives, all while avoiding the feds, U.S. and galactic. Despite the title, most of the book takes place on roads away from Roswell; not on roads to Roswell.

This is not the author’s first alien encounter. Unchartered Territory, which takes place on another planet, features an alien completely different from this one. The Roswell alien – nicknamed “Indy” by his kidnappee’s – resembles a tumbleweed with tentacles (or a tumbleweed of tentacles) while Bult is described as a tall, accordion-like being, with an online-shopping addiction. Indy is frantic; Bult, phlegmatic. Both are single-mindedly pursuing something with purpose: Indy’s pursuit is critical; Bult’s is self-serving. It’s fascinating to see Willis create two such different aliens.

I often describe Willis’s books as “someone – usually a woman – finds herself in a situation mostly involuntarily. Things take off and begin to get crazier and crazier, increasingly frenetic, until something snaps, you – and they – figure out what is going on; and then the pace becomes languid though still with tension, while things resolve themselves.” It feels like listening to the musical soundtrack of a Wes Anderson movie, Moonrise Kingdom, perhaps.

I liked this book and I will read it again someday. Willis has a pattern in her books but it’s like watching Doctor Who – you have a general idea of what’s going to happen, you think, and the fun is in watching how it unfolds differently every time; sometimes not the way that you thought it would; always with a twist you weren’t expecting. Willis writes hard science fiction – fiction based on science and technology – but with such wild plots and humor – and dash of romance – that you don’t realize what she’s up to until you’ve learned something.

I was going to send my sister a copy of this book to enjoy before our trip to New Mexico – I think she would have liked the madcap ride; and the chaos that ensues would have made her feel better about the chaos in her own life. Perhaps that’s why I appreciate Willis as an author: the main characters are just trying to take control of their lives somehow, while everything around them tries to introduce chaos. It helps to read about someone else going through a magnified experience of what you’re going through.

So, if you’re feeling a little gahol, take a little joy ride with an alien on The Road to Roswell.