Cruise Control

Hank Delacroix hasn’t taken a vacation since 1997. He hasn’t left Louisiana since a disastrous trip to Oklahoma in 2019. And he certainly hasn’t done anything more adventurous than running the same auto repair shop in Thibodaux for the past thirty years.

Then his Aunt Vivienne dies and leaves him a non-refundable cruise ticket. Fourteen days on a luxury Mediterranean ＂Wine & Wellness＂ voyage. A handwritten letter that says: ＂Henry needs to stop working and start living before it’s too late. If he doesn’t use this cruise, I will haunt him.＂

Hank doesn’t drink wine. He doesn’t believe in wellness. He thinks yoga is for people who don’t have real problems. And he gets queasy just thinking about boats.

But forty-two thousand dollars is forty-two thousand dollars-so his sister Margot is coming too. So is Dwayne, his best friend since high school, a conspiracy theorist convinced cruise ships are ＂floating government experiments.＂

What follows is a hilarious fish-out-of-water adventure through the Mediterranean, as seen through the eyes of a man who describes wine as ＂grape juice that went bad＂ and thinks formal dinner dress codes are a personal attack. Hank will offend sommeliers, attempt yoga with joints that pop like Rice Krispies, wear a fishing lure shirt to the Captain’s dinner, get lost in Rome without GPS, and accidentally fix half the plumbing on the ship.

A warm, funny story about grief, stubborn men, and discovering that slowing down isn’t the same as giving up.