When musician Anna Greene dies at the untimely age of 42, her family and friends are stunned by their sudden loss. Theo, Anna’s husband, fluctuates between numb grief and fury at the world. Fifteen-year-old Beth is fighting her own demons, while little brother Sam just misses his mum. But Anna has left one last request: that those who love her should walk the Pilgrims’ Way to Canterbury in her memory.

Four months later, they set out on a hundred-mile journey that will change their lives for ever. Walking with the family are Father Stephen – a priest wrestling with a deeply personal crisis of conscience – and Anna’s sparky best friend, single mother Tamsin. Then a stranger joins the group. Who is he? And what was the catastrophe that drove Anna from home a decade earlier?

Over the course of nine days, the pilgrims share their memories of Anna, and gradually the layers of her life are peeled back to uncover secrets no one ever suspected. Can those who love her live with all that is past?

I started this book with a little trepidation because I was not sure that a book about mourning was appropriate literature a few days after my father’s funeral. In the event it was the perfect book for the occasion as Sarah Meyrick treated the subject of loss with compassion and understanding.

In an easy to read 219 pages Sarah Meyrick takes us through the lives of Anna’s loved ones as they spend nine days walking from Guildford to Canterbury in her memory. The chapters are seen through the perspective of various walkers and during the journey the author gradually drip feeds us with snippets of their lives and their relationships with both Anna and with one another.

It is all done in a gentle manner, living up to the cover picture which depicts the many aspects of the Greene family life. The characters are very believable; indeed they could represent most family groups. I loved the way that they all learnt to understand and support each other with their various emotional and physical issues. Yes, they pick up a few bruises along the way but they all end the book stronger people than when they started.

It would be impossible to write a book about recreating a Christian pilgrimage without commenting on religion and Sarah Meyrick covers this with sensitivity. She shows how faith can help at difficult times but she also demonstrates how silence and contemplation can benefit those without a belief.

I thoroughly recommend Knowing Anna and I can give it nothing short of five stars.

I studied Classics at Cambridge and Social Anthropology at Oxford, which gave me a fascination for the stories people tell and the worlds they inhabit. I have worked variously as a journalist, editor and PR professional. I am currently Director of Communications for the Diocese of Oxford.

Alongside my day job, I am the Director of the Bloxham Festival of Faith and Literature which is a small literary festival that takes place in north Oxfordshire near Banbury. We describe it as “a literary festival with a theological slant” and our mission is to encourage a love of literature as it relates to faith; to bring together authors and those who appreciate their work; and to create a thoughtful and relaxing space in which to consider works of literature and their religious themes.

I live in Northamptonshire with my husband and we have two grown up children.

www.sarahmeyrick.co.uk
@sarahmeyrick