On Winter Hill

About this book

Award-winning nature writer Raynor Winn laces up her walking boots once more, heading north for what will become a deeply personal pilgrimage along the Coast-to-Coast Path – but this time she walks alone.

After a turbulent year for herself and husband Moth, Raynor Winn finds herself at the start of the Coast-to-Coast Path in the north of England, in bleak winter, unexpectedly alone. Despite forty-five years walking hand in hand, for the first time, Moth is not with her. Setbacks in his health have led him to believe his decline is now inevitable, something Raynor refuses to accept.

With Raynor feeling trapped and tormented, and Moth needing space to come to terms with what's happening to him, Raynor feels herself drawn north, like a migratory bird, to embark on a trail they had planned to walk together – The Coast-to-Coast Path. Grappling with Moth's absence and wracked with fears for the future, Raynor sets off in search of the renewed peace and hope that their previous journeys have always yielded.

Navigating the brutal weather, impassable paths and her own tangle of emotions, Raynor is forced to contemplate the mountains – both real and metaphorical – that the couple have had to climb to reach this point.

As she gradually finds her way back to Moth, she gains a new understanding of our intrinsic human connection to the land and the power of the natural world to help us remember, rebuild and reclaim what was once lost.

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Biography

Raynor Winn is the internationally bestselling author of The Salt Path, The Wild Silence and Landlines. Her books have sold over 2 million copies in English and have been translated into over 25 languages. The Salt Path won the Royal Society of Literature's inaugural Christopher Bland Prize and was shortlisted for the Costa Biography Award and the Wainwright Prize for Nature Writing. The Wild Silence was also shortlisted for the Wainwright Prize. In 2024, the Sunday Times listed The Salt Path as one of the top 100 books of the past 50 years. It has now been adapted into a major film starring Gillian Anderson and Jason Isaacs and screened in cinemas in the UK and overseas.

Raynor is a regular long-distance walker and writes about nature, homelessness and our relationship to the land. She lives in Cornwall with her husband, Moth. On Winter Hill is her fourth book.