As the book opens, Harold Fry, a retired man in a cold, strained marriage with Maureen, receives a letter from Queenie Hennessy, a former work colleague. She is writing to say goodbye — she is in hospice and dying of cancer. Harold writes a simple note in reply and sets off by foot to post it. However, the first postal box doesn’t seem right, nor the second, . . . and Harold finds himself walking six hundred miles from the south of England to Queenie in the north, convinced that somehow his walking will keep her alive. Harold is completely unprepared for the walk, but he feels that it is something he must do, and so he keeps on. Along the way he meets a wildly diverse assortment of individuals, and he ponders his life, remembering the good times of so long ago, as well as the tragedies that followed. Maureen, left at home, also has time to do a lot of thinking. This is ultimately a very hopeful book with a message that it is never too late to seek healing for life’s hurts or to make ammends. Recommended.