PEKING TO PARIS

PEKING TO PARIS is a thrilling nonfiction road trip during which a woman tries to save her car, her marriage, and her confidence from breaking down. In 2007, Dina Bennet -- "the Dashboard Diva" -- and her soulmate husband Bernard, a dashing Frenchman, re-tooled a 1940 Cadillac LaSalle and embarked on the Peking to Paris Classic Motor Challenge.

It begins at Beijing's Great Wall and covers 8,000 miles, ending at the Place Vendome in Paris. Bernard drove, and Dina Bennett became the world’s least likely navigator: a daydreamer prone to carsickness, riddled with self-doubt, and married to a thrill-seeking perfectionist who is half-human, half-racecar. What could possibly go wrong? PEKING TO PARIS is first and foremost a voyage of transformation, written for every woman who’s ever doubted herself and any man who’s wondered what the woman traveling with him is thinking. The reader is swept on a wild, emotional ride, with romance and adversity, torment and triumph. Starting in Beijing, Dina and her husband, Bernard, limp across the Gobi, Siberia, Baltic States, and south to Paris in their ancient Cadillac, while Dina nurses the absurd hope that she can turn herself into a person of courage and patience. Dina brings the reader with her as she deftly sidesteps rock-throwing Mongolians and locks horns with Russians left over from the Interpol era—not to mention getting a sandstorm facial, and racing rabbits on crazy curvy country roads. Since that infamous Peking to Paris Classic Motor Challenge, Dina and Bernard have driven together all over the world, sometimes to places that are reassuringly cosmopolitan, but mostly on journeys that are far-flung and remote. You'll love this journey — and this Dashboard Diva!