Louis Hall

LONGLISTED FOR THE SALTIRE BOOK AWARDS 2025'A classic adventure narrative in the vein of Patrick Leigh Fermor and Robert Louis Stevenson... life-changing' CAL FLYN, author of Islands of AbandonmentIn his mid-twenties, city-bound and restless, Louis D. Hall found himself uncertain. How to create a life he wanted to lead? Inspired by Don Quixote, he decided to fulfil a childhood dream – to make an uncharted journey on horseback. After finding his horse, Sasha, in Italy’s Apennine Mountains, Louis set off and headed west. His destination: Cape Finisterre, ‘the end of the land’. For three weeks Louis and Sasha survived storms, snow, wolves and the untrodden partisan paths of the Ligurian Alps. But then a young woman arrived with her horse, Istia, and their solitary world was broken. Kiki, adrift with the death of her sibling, joined the journey, and the duo continued together. With every step and every fall, the pair are forced to unfold and trust in their horses and, eventually, each other. Using old and forgotten routes, guided by strangers and nature’s clues, the travellers unravel into a wilder way of life; united by the mysteries of the horse, enticed by the illusions of adventure.

An incredible account of the journey of one young man and his horse into a very old Europe, written in lush, comic prose that evokes classic writers such as Cervantes, Laurie Lee and Bruce Chatwin.Abandoning temporary jobs and all ideas of a career plan, twenty-three-year-old Louis Hall decided that he needed to take a very long ride on an unknown horse on forgotten mountain paths. Channelling Don Quixote, he was unprepared for most of the dangers that faced him and Sasha, the resilient and patient sixteen-hand bay Arab he first meets in a castle near Siena. He was even less prepared for the lessons that both Sasha and the young woman who joins them part way taught him about life''s potential and its complexities.A glorious piece of rich, romantic travel writing that takes the reader along old paths, into ancient villages, sharing rural homes and stables of farmers and shepherds in the Ligurian Alps, Pyrenees, Basque country and Galician coast, from a brilliant new talent.