David Nicholls is one of my favourite authors (see my blogs on Sweet Sorrow and Us) so I bought his latest novel You Are Here as an airport exclusive paperback on my way to Fuerteventura at the end of August and read it on the four hour flight home.

It tells the tale of Michael and Marnie, both stuck, unhappy and lonely in their lives, after a marriage breakup in his case and friends drifting away from her single life in hers. They are brought together in St Bees in Cumbria (where I went for the first time last summer) to walk a section of the Coast to Coast path with mutual friends. The friends plan to set them up, but not with each other, and when their respective bait each fails to turn up, Michael and Marnie find themselves mainly walking together.

He is a Geography teacher and at home in the landscape, and whilst she struggles with the physical exertion, he distracts her by explaining the rocks they are walking on. What could be deeply infuriating turns into a good distraction and they develop a steady rhythm as both begin to let their guards down and share this intensive physical experience.

The setting of this love story, complete with maps to guide you along each day of the walk, was always going to appeal to me, as a fan of long-distance walking and of reading about long walks (see my blogs on Landlines, The Salt Path, The Wild Silence, and Finding Hildasay) and Nicholls’ latest focus on new love when all seems lost did not disappoint.