Raynor Winn:  The Salt Path - An Uplifting true tale. 9780241349649. Michael Joseph/ Penguin Random House, Hardback

“The Salt Path” is one of the most inspiring books I have read in a very long time. A tribute to resilience, perseverance, love and the human spirit, it is also incredibly well written. I cannot believe this is Ray’s first book, so wonderfully written with raw honesty. I am not surprised this has become a Sunday Times bestseller.  

When Raynor Winn and her husband Moth (yes, that is his real name), both just 50, lose their farm in Wales, their savings and literally everything they own due to a bad business decision into a longtime friends firm, they find themselves homeless after court fights have failed, eating up their last resources. That is enough to bring most people to their knees. But within 7 days of the court order to evacuate their home, Moth is given a diagnosis of a terminal illness, an incurable rare neurological disorder which eventually affects muscles and all organ control.  With nowhere to go, social services having failed them and having to subside on a tax refund payment of 48 GBP a week for both of them, they make the impulsive decision to walk the South West Coastal Path hiking from Minehead to Poole, Somerset to Dorset, and Devon to Cornwell.

Weak, unfit, one of them in constant pain, with no prospects, they start putting one foot in front of another, battling backpacks, heat, sunburns, blisters, sore muscles, torrential rains, wind, cold and wild camping at night. Most week’s rice and noodles are their diet cooked on a camping stove.  Their unbelievable life story hooked me immediately; I hiked and suffered with them in spirit, sometimes not knowing how on earth they persevered.  What touched me the most was the love and bond between them, the only thing they had to fall back onto after being together for 32 years.  Having lost all material riches, this richness carried them through the worst moments and situations. It is a heart breaking story at times, life affirming, a tale of the healing power of nature and a testament to what humans can endure if there is love and belief. 

I really took them into my heart desperately hoping there would be a cure for Moth and a good life for them both.  The royalty payments for this book should help.

Zoe Ferraris: The Night of the Mi’raj, 9780349120324, Hachette/ Little Brown UK, 2009, paperback
German Edition:  Die letzte Sure, Piper Verlag, Paperback

When talking about unusual crime novels, a friend told me how much she enjoyed Zoe Ferraris series set in Jeddah/Saudi Arabia and recommended I should start with “The Night of the Mi’raj”.  Always on the lookout for new discoveries particularly if not with the latest pub date, I downloaded the book and started reading straight away. 

I was hooked from the beginning and will definitely download the other two, “City of Veils „and “Kingdom of Strangers”.

Set in Saudi Arabia the novel allows a glimpse into the conservative and restrictive world of Muslim women in this country yet revealing how clever and inventive they are in carving out niches of freedom and independence for themselves within the religious system.  I read that Zoe Ferraris lived in a religious community in Saudi Arabia and this experience certainly transpires in the novel.  She has not only created two very likeable characters with investigator and desert guide Nayir and Katya Hijazi, who holds the unusual position of a forensic scientist in the police force but paints a colorful, contemporary portrait of Jeddah.

When Nouf ash-Shrawi, one of the daughter of a wealthy Jeddah family, disappears days before her arranged marriage, her half-brother and Nayir’s friend Othman requests his help in bringing her back home.  Her battered body is found in a Wadi and Othman entrusts his fiancé Katya, the forensic scientist with the Saudi Police, in finding the cause of her death.  But this is not the only surprise Katya and Nayir discover independently from one another when looking into Nouf’s death.  The book is a page turner; I will not write more as it would spoil the fun.  The interaction of Nayir and Katya ruled by religious protocol but with the determination of uncovering the truth is truly fascinating as are the protocols to be observed of the male and female world in this very restrictive Middle Eastern culture which is very foreign to my independent spirit as a Western woman.