Pathfinding: On Walking, Motherhood and Freedom

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LoveReading’s Best Books of the Year 2025

From the author of Wanderers: A History of Women Walking

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Can one new mother rediscover a path back to the hills and to freedom?

‘Left me itching to lace up my boots and follow the call of the path.’ Laura Pashby, author of Chasing Fog

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In the wake of the complete upheaval of becoming a mother, walker Kerri Andrews finds herself carrying the idea that maybe the hills are no longer for her.

Yet, what she soon discovers are tales of mother-walkers that have long been neglected or hidden away. And with it a sense that there may be a way back into the mountains for her too.

So Kerri begins small, joined on walks on beaches and in cities by women who have also experienced profound changes to their sense of themselves and their bodies. And as Kerri’s journeys become increasingly ambitious – the valleys and peaks of her past beckoning – it becomes clear that these wild places could be hers once more. That there may indeed be a way back to the mountains, and to freedom.

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‘Bold, brave’ Helen Jukes, author of Mother Animal

‘Powerful and unflinchingly honest’ Annabel Abbs, author of Windswept