I was watching Sara Cox’s excellent book club programme on BBC2, Between the Covers, and this was recommended by the newsreader Sophie Raworth. I hadn’t heard of it before, but Sophie was so passionate about its writing, about the message that nature can truly heal people who have been through trauma, that I bought a copy online while I was still watching. It is also a debut novel, and I am fascinated by writer’s first books.

The Salt Path is about a couple who lose their farm in Wales and their entire livelihood following a bad business deal with a friend. Homeless and penniless, and faced with nothing better to do, they decide to walk the South West Coast Path in the hope that the land and physical activity will somehow tell them to what they should do with the rest of their lives.

At the same time as they are made homeless Moth, the husband, discovers that he has a degenerative disease which means he has only a few years to live.

So the background to them doing this walk is as dramatic as the terrain they begin to tackle. Will Moth survive the physical challenges of this 630-mile path? Will they get the answers they are seeking?

Winn’s prose is the highlight of the book. It is shining with gloriously evocative descriptions of nature — of the sea, the coastal views, the hills and beaches, rivers and moorland as they backpack and camp their way around Cornwall. She paints such detailed pictures of birds and plants and weather that you are transported to the path with her; you can smell the smells and sense the sea mist on your face.

Ultimately it is a story about redemption, about triumph of hope over despair, and of love — their deep, enduring love for one another. As such, it can be a little ‘hippy’ in parts, a little too mystical and at one with the universe, but despite this I was enchanted by it — so much so that I have now also devoured the follow-up, The Wild Silence.

The second book, however, was really more of the same: undeniably beautiful prose, but the same story of Moth’s continuing battle with his life-threatening condition and their decision to go on another long-distance walk, this time in Iceland. I’m not sure I can read another tale along the same lines, but Winn’s is undeniably a powerful, unique voice.

Extract:
I put my hand on his hair. I’d stroked that hair when it was long and blond, full of sea salt, heather and youth; and now silver, thinner, full of the dust of our life.