Two Steps Forward

March 19, 2018
Buist (Medea’s Curse) and Simsion (The Rosie Project) collaborate on this uneven dual-protagonist story about a California widow and a divorced Brit who find one another on the Chemin, a spiritual walking route that winds through France and Spain. After losing her second husband, Keith, to what she suspects was a suicide, 45-year-old mom Zoe Witt takes up her old pal Camille’s invitation to visit her in France. Zoe learns about the Chemin and participates on a whim, despite her aversions to the walk’s religious origins (she was raised Roman Catholic, but has been at odds with her faith since her mother disowned her for taking her friend to get an abortion in college). Martin Eden, 52, is an engineering professor who thinks the Chemin will be a good way to test a new cart design from which he hopes to profit. He is also still smarting from the fact that his ex-wife cheated on him with his boss. Zoe and Martin get the wrong impression of one another at first, and then over and over again. The will-they-or-won’t-they tension grows old fast as miscommunications keeps them from consummating their affections—a shame since their love story is the least interesting part of the novel. Their interactions with fellow travelers from around the world, as well as their own fraught histories—Zoe’s with the Church, Martin with his teen daughter, Sarah—are the true highlights. Though readers may not fall in love with the central romance, they’ll appreciate everything else.

July 27, 2017
Martin, a divorced English engineer, and Zoe, a widowed American artist, are each at a turning point in their lives. Unexpectedly alone, without money or young families to care for, they are unsure where life will take them next. Each sets out to walk over 2000 kilometres along the Camino de Santiago, the famous pilgrim’s walk through France and Spain. Martin has planned his journey meticulously while Zoe has embarked on something of a whim, inspired by the promise that the Camino will help her find what she has lost. Martin’s and Zoe’s stories are told in alternating chapters by husband-and-wife writing team Graeme Simsion and Anne Buist. The leisurely paced novel explores themes of forgiveness and self-discovery with gentle humour. A cast of interesting characters and the detailed descriptions of the logistics and rich history of the walk add to its appeal. Two Steps Forward is a feel-good, mature romance that explores what we need to let go of to move forward. It will be enjoyed by fans of Simsion’s ‘Rosie’ books and Rachel Joyce’s The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry. Melanie Mutch is a librarian and co-founder of librarianschoice.org