The Unlikely Pilgrimage Of Harold Fry: The uplifting and redemptive No. 1 Sunday Times bestseller (Harold Fry, 1)

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When Harold Fry nips out one morning to post a letter, leaving his wife hoovering upstairs, he has no idea that he is about to walk from one end of the country to the other. This is a deceptively simple story of love, forgiveness, fulfilment and hope. I can't think of any other novelist quite as tender and compassionate as Rachel Joyce, who understands that miracle of transformation when human fragility becomes strength of spirit. Bel Mooney RJ: Yeah. I mean, she makes me laugh. Her manner does make me laugh, even though it is quite abrasive sometimes. But she has been really, really clear to me and, I mean, it does feel like they have been hanging around for 10 years. The book originally was a very short radio play, so I knew their dialogue even before I wrote the book, and I've then gone on since then to write the screenplay for the film. As he begins the walk—which in 87 days will cover 627 miles—he reflects. About his marriage, his former employment as a brewery representative, about his son David, from whom he is almost completely estranged. From stopping places he sends postcards, to his wife Maureen, to Queenie, and to the unnamed girl at the filling station who gave him inspiration for his journey. EC: Right. I did want to ask you about that. This trilogy is so centered on grief. But a lot of your stories are. There are elements of it I see in some of the others. And is that process of grieving your father—I'm curious how this has become such a central theme to your work.

This was David. This was him. This was angry; It was violent... Too fragile for the world and yet full of youth and complication and pomp and arrogance. She did not know how such a piece of wood could have survived the wind and rain and yet, secure in Queenie's Garden, it had held fast." When Harold gets a note from one of the new friends he made along his way which says she read that Queenie had made a garden with “a monument to your son”, Maureen knows she wants to see it. Harold tells her she must go. She must, to see what this garden has to do with David. A new volunteer at the hospice suggests that Queenie should write again; only this time she must tell Harold everything. In confessing to secrets she has hidden for twenty years, she will find atonement for the past. As the volunteer points out, 'Even though you've done your travelling, you're starting a new journey too.' If Harold discovers he has a musical voice (and I hope he does), it will be the same as me discovering a whole crowd of shadows waiting to tell their story. Writers are like therapists; we bring our characters to a place where they can live their lives more consciously. But maybe fiction can do the same for writers, if we give it time and let it run its course. Maybe it can us change too. EC: I mean, it is such an achievement that I think a lot of writers who have families and other careers find hugely inspiring. Was becoming a novelist something you always kept your eyes on over the years? Was that a goal? And what was your story to getting that first work out there?

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It does feel like this series is complete now and I am glad to have read all three of these books. I think it is best to read all three in the series. I did like the first two quite a bit and just didn’t connect as much with Maureen. I do like this author, and I look forward to her next books!

Following that, came a second book, The Love Song of Miss Queenie Hennessy—the whole tale told, as it were, as a reverse shot, from the point of view of the woman for whom Harold is walking. And finally this year, there is Maureen, the story of the wife Harold left at home the day he set off on his walk. Maureen has always been the underdog—the blunt woman with a sharp tongue who would rather stay at home, cleaning, than go out and meet a stranger.

In this slender, lyrical novel, Rachel Joyce offers a story as epic and encompassing as that wide-armed angel of the North. A journey of redemption, forgiveness and love. A journey you don't want to miss. Helen Paris, author of Lost Property