I listened to this book, rather than read it. The main characters are Marnie and Michael, both of whom are adrift, in a metaphorical sense, in their late 30s. They are brought together by a mutual friend for a walking holiday which becomes much more.

Marnie is weary of romance, possibly of life as well, and has become something of a recluse as a freelance book editor, who – slightly regretfully – accepts herself and what she is becoming. Michael has broken up from his wife and is still, basically, in mourning from that event. He is a geography teacher and increasingly antisocial. You can see why they both need a holiday!

As they hike across northern England, firstly as part of a group and then together, they begin to unwrap their lives through their conversations. They start to find things in common as well as a mutual attraction. The process is slow but elegantly described as they move from one day’s walking to the next. This is the great strength of the novel, showing how they slowly recognise something in themselves and each other, despite events sometimes conspiring against them and their mutual inability to be totally honest about what they feel and think. For both of them, self-deception has become a habit.

There’s a lot of description of landscape and weather, and the powerful feeling that they are bonded by facing up to the challenges after others have given up. So far it is excellent, but then the novel starts to fade. Things go wrong after they almost manage passionate sex, when their coupling is interrupted by a landlady who insists that there are no gentleman callers after 10 PM. This is a fairly preposterous plot move and the outcome is that they go back three stages and the book becomes slower and repetitive and, eventually, Marnie leaves Michael and goes back to London. Quite a lot else happens and there is a sort of happy ending but somehow the pace has been lost.

David Nicholls also misses the chance to explore how the relationship might have developed after the boarding house incident and that is something which could have been interesting in terms of both the development of the story and the characters. So, for me at least, the novel did not sustain my interest which is a shame because the portrait of the two characters in the first half is excellently done.