The Parallel Path: Love, Grit and Walking the North

by Jenn Ashworth

'Forget The Salt Path - this writer's introspective journey provides genuine food for thought... Chastened but buoyant, she's stimulating to be with, her book the best kind of walking companion'
Guardian
'Touching, thoughtful and frank - Jenn Ashworth is a wonderful writer'
David Nicholls, author of You Are Here

'I've long loved Ashworth's uncanny fiction, and this memoir is filled with her characteristic understanding of the connections between the physical world and our interior lives. Wonderful for taking on a walk yourself.'
Financial Times

'Like going on a long walk with an old I loved it'
Mark Haddon, author of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time


Burnt out and longing for an escape, Jenn Ashworth emerged from lockdown with a compulsive need to walk - and to walk away. Armed with little more than the knowledge imparted by a two-day orienteering course and a set of maps, she embarked on the most epic of English Wainwright's Coast to Coast.

Guided not just by Wainwright's writing but also by daily letters from her friend Clive - facing an epic journey of his own - Jenn's pilgrimage soon becomes more than just a chance to reconnect and excavate, to re-engage with the act of caring for others and for oneself.

But the walk's tricky terrain is not the only thing standing in Jenn's way. As days go by, her balance begins to fail her and the act of putting one foot in front the other becomes a new exercise in caution. When a vicious heatwave forces her to pause her expedition and gives her an opportunity to investigate the new limitations of her body, Jenn is confronted with a life-altering diagnosis - and a new path of self-discovery.


'With honesty, humour and determination, Ashworth's journey takes the reader from coast to coast in search of freedom'
Jessica Andrews, author of Milk Teeth

'Stunning - and stunningly intelligent . . . I was very moved and with her every step of the way'
Julie Myerson, author of Nonfiction

'Full of intelligence and wisdom, searing self-awareness and humour... Jenn Ashworth is an incredibly talented writer'
Lily Dunn, author of Sins of My Father

'Beautifully realised and powerful'
Catherine Taylor, author of The Stirrings

Genres: Nonfiction, Memoir

289 pages, Kindle Edition

Published July 17, 2025

About the author

Jenn Ashworth is an English writer. She was born in 1982 in Preston, Lancashire. She has graduated from Cambridge University and the Manchester Centre for New Writing. In March 2011 she was featured as one of the BBC Culture Show's Best 12 New Novelists. She previously worked as a librarian in a men's prison.

She founded the Preston Writers Network, later renamed as the Central Lancs Writing Hub, and worked as its coordinator until it closed in January 2010. She has also taught creative writing at the Centre for New Writing at the University of Manchester, the University of Central Lancashire and the University of Lancaster.

Her first novel, A Kind of Intimacy, won a Betty Trask Award in 2010. An extract from an earlier novel, lost as a result of a computer theft in 2004, was the winner of the 2003 Quiller-Couch Prize for Creative Writing at Cambridge University.

Reviews

[Colin · Rating 5 out of 5]

I do love books about journeys, particularly those taken on foot. There’s something about the pace and rhythm of a long walk that lends itself to storytelling, reflection and thought. Jenn Ashworth’s The Parallel Path is an excellent example of the genre, although the book’s subtitle (Love, Grit and Walking the North) did initially give me some cause for concern in case I was letting myself in for something syrupy and trite. I need not have worried as the book actually turned out to be considerably more complex and thought-provoking than that suggested. Jenn Ashworth recounts several walks here, but the main focus of the book is a long trek along one of the most well-known and popular long distance trails in the UK, Wainwright’s Coast to Coast walk, from St Bee’s Head on the Cumbrian coast to Robin Hood’s Bay in North Yorkshire. Interwoven with her walking are several long-running meditations - on health, sickness and mortality (her artist friend and erstwhile walking companion Clive is dying and sends her updates from his experiences with hospitals and family in the form of illustrated letters sent to each of her overnight accommodation stops along the way), the many meanings of care and love, her personal history and that of walking women more generally. She also has an original and winning turn of phrase: in describing a pair of grouse suddenly exploding from the heather on the Yorkshire Moors, for instance: ‘the sudden beating of the wings sounded like dropped library books’. It really is a wonderful book, rich and complex, questioning and reassuring in equal measure.

[Danielle Armstrong · Rating 5 out of 5]

Non-fiction and predominantly about walking, it is not something I would usually read however giving how much I have loved the fictional works of Jenn Ashworth I thought I would give it a go.

Turns out I enjoyed it well more than I thought I would and if I was the type of person to cry at a book, then I’d be in tears. Deeply emotional, topics of death, illness, responsibility and the desire to escape. It wasn’t at all bleak though in fact some bits were delightful the writing is great and full of good quotes and phrases that I will remember - Shirley valentines in a north face.

Its made me want to go on a big walk.

[Dandelion · Rating 4 out of 5]

A somewhat incongruous but well-written book about the author walking the Coast to Coast path. I read the book partly because I love a hiking memoir and partly because I have been contemplating trying the Coast to Coast walk myself one day.
For clarity, the Coast to Coast is a pretty challenging two-week hike but it's not comparable to something like the Pacific Crest trail or the GR20.

In the end, the book was only tangentially about the walking. And despite the book being sold as something akin to a memoir, we don't get deep insight into the author either. She reveals her desire for wishing to be alone, even leaving her family behind, but isn't prepared to open up too much. Instead she deflects and centres the book around her terminally ill friend Clive. I wasn't sure how I felt about that. Was this exploitative or did Clive wish to be immortalised in such a way? It was sensitively done but nevertheless felt slightly off.

There could have been a lot of scope for the author's personal history because despite her relative youth she certainly has had an interesting life. From what I can ascertain, she grew up in Preston in a Mormon family (which must have been pretty unusual there), had a difficult childhood, completely refused to go to school and only reentered formal education when she started her studies at Cambridge. She had a terrible experience when her epidural wore off during a Caesarean section and suffered mental health issues as a result. The father of her first child died of cancer, and Ashworth herself suffered serious illness around the time of this book, which 'The Parallel Path' covers to an extent. Perhaps the author is saving it all for a full memoir (which I'd definitely read) or she is fundamentally uncomfortable with such public intimacy. Unfortunately, the greatest books of fiction and autobiography require the author to make themselves vulnerable.

The writing itself is great but I wished for greater descriptions of and affinity with nature and the walk itself, though ironically the book actually gave me some useful practical tips.

Having read the book, I've gone off the idea of walking the Coast to Coast path. I thought 'The Parallel Path' would describe natural beauty but it just sounds miserable.

'The Parallel Path' was one of those books that whilst imperfect, was intriguing and made you want to read more by the author.

[Gerard Murphy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent - really well structured - searingly honest - at times the author seems too harsh on herself.

Themes of family - death - impact of Covid - friendship are weaved seamlessly throughout the Coast to Coast walk.

Moments of humour sit alongside descriptions of the pain and suffering of such a major physical adventure.

A memoir which will live long in the mind after you have finished.

Would like to explore Jenn Ashworth's novels ...clearly she is a talented writer.

[Adam · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Parallel Path is quietly, and seemingly effortlessly, a masterpiece. Ashworth's deft hand not only leads the reader along the coast to coast walk but also through a personal history and a study of aloneness and determination that makes her every step compelling. It sets a new standard for the walking memoir.

[Annette Morris · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting and thought provoking read with a surprising outcome. A 40 year old woman walks the coast to coast route from St Bees to Robin Hoods Bay, thinking, reminiscing and philosophising as she goes.

[Sarah Taylor · Rating 1 out of 5]

Rambling thoughts with no real point