A Second Chance at Love

On November 6, that great book-lovers’ website, Bookbub, will have my very first novel, The Long Walk Home, on a free offer for 7 days.  It’s the first in a series of three books I like to call “love stories for grownups.” The other two are Water, Stone, Heart and Seasons’ End, which will be on sale until November 13th. 

But I want to tell you a story about that first book, The Long Walk Home.
First, part of the story is true. The male protagonist, American Alec Hudson, comes to England to honor his late wife’s last request that he scatter her ashes atop a mountain in North Wales. He actually walks across England carrying her urn in his backpack. It is a kind of pilgrimage, and a kind of penance. The mountain, “Cadair Idris,” is notoriously dangerous and, rising as it does directly from the Irish Sea, is regularly lashed with vicious storms. This part of the story is true. I did this for my late wife.

Second, reaching the end of his journey he finds a farmhouse bed and breakfast near the mountain’s base and, as he waits for the weather to make ascent possible, he and Fiona Edwards, his host, draw together out of a mutual sense of loss and a rekindled love neither expected to return to their lives at middle age. That part is fiction but something I hope for everyone. It is a love story, after all, but one with twists and turns that will try the faith of each of the main characters and, I hope, renew your faith in love.

Here are some reviews:

''[A] lyrical first novel about love and loss. . . North offers vivid descriptions of the Welsh countryside, capturing its local dialect, flora and fauna, and wild weather. . .if Nicholas Sparks set a novel in North Wales, it would read a lot like this!''—Publishers Weekly

''A brilliantly realized romance...'' —The Strand Book Store, NYC

If you haven’t read The Long Walk Home I hope you will take advantage of this limited free offer to do so. And if you have, here’s your chance to share it with all your other reader friends!
Thank you for your continued support.
Best,
Will North