The Camino de Santiago (St James's Way) ranked only after Jerusalem and Rome in medieval times, thought to secure 'points' for entry into heaven for any pilgrim to cover its 500 miles. In her late forties, Rosemary Wallace is already uneasy about setting out: whether she will last the distance under the relentless sun, and whether she will fit in on the pilgrim trail.
What unfolds along the way is an extraordinary, cross-cultural group of stories that interweave, like the Canterbury Tales, with each step taken: an angry young man; an avuncular Spanish poet; a doctor accosted in the village of Casanova by a man who wants her to be his; and the enigmatic Murielle.
Mary Howell won the Cinnamon Press Novel Award for Murielle's Angel. Having lived for over 20 years in Manchester, she now lives in north Wales, where she recently completed an MA in Creative Writing at the University of Bangor.