35-year-old Sadie Wells is desperate to escape her monotonous routines, family business, and some unexpected gay panic. When her injured sister offers Sadie her place on a tour along Portugal’s Camino de Santiago, she decides this is the perfect chance to get away from it all. After three glasses of wine on the plane and some turbulence, Sadie confesses all her secrets to her seatmate, Mal. The problem: the plane doesn’t crash, and it turns out Mal is on her Camino tour. Worst of all, Sadie learns that she is on a tour specifically for queer women, and that her 200-mile trek will be a journey of self-discovery, whether she wants it to be or not. Mal offers to help Sadie relive the queer adolescence she missed out on as they walk the Camino. As Sadie develops her newfound confidence, Mal grapples with a complicated loss and unexpected inheritance. But as their relationship blurs the lines between reality and practice, they both must decide if they will forever part at the end of the tour or chart a new course together.
Can I just squeal here for a second? Every Step She Takes is brimming with fun, self-discovery, and growth. Let’s break it down.
Characters (5/5): Sadie and Mal are so well fleshed out. Both have a lot of self-discovery to navigate while trekking the Camino, and they bring us along for every step of the journey. Sadie’s later-in-life queer awakening has the perfect balance of panic and joy. There’s something refreshing and hopeful about the moment when we finally understand ourselves. Seeing Sadie explore that journey with Mal as her guide is stunning and heartfelt. Mal’s journey as she navigates loss (not only of her father, but parts of herself when he couldn’t accept her) is just as important. And the rest of the Camino tour group? I’d read a follow-up for any one of them! I loved that though it’s a tour “exclusively for lesbians, sapphics, and other LGBTQ + women and gender-queer folks,” we saw characters with different queer identities, at different points of their own unique journeys. The Camino brought them all together, but they learn and grow alongside one another.
Plot and Pacing (4/5): The story gives us the perfect balance of internal and external struggle: Sadie’s physical journey of trekking the Camino de Santiago and her internal journey of unlearning compulsive heterosexuality, allowing her to discover her most authentic self. Mal is forced to face her self-destructive behavior of never staying for the middle, breaking off relationships before she has to be vulnerable, before she can get hurt. These women share the same physical journey while navigating their internal struggles alone, healing and discovering themselves before coming together once more.
World-Building (3/5): Books that travel through Europe give me the chance to travel, explore, experience the world, too. There are so many strong descriptions in this story, but they didn’t always trigger all five senses. I needed a bit more to feel fully immersed, to lose myself on the Camino alongside Sadie and Mal.
Romance (4/5): Sadie and Mal get all heart-eyed for one another from their first flight side-by-side, and that initial attraction grows organically as they spend time together. Their forced proximity (on the trip and as roommates) urges both women to let their walls down. Sadie is so beautifully, openly vulnerable; it’s a different kind of confidence than what we see from Mal, who appears fully self-aware and confident in her identity. But that confidence can conceal wounds they’re both still healing from. The little moments we get between them (the blister repair and foot massage, gelato kisses, sunrise trek, picnicking among grapevines, even watching Property Brothers together) were precious and heartfelt. The “practice” subplot is an excuse they both tell themselves to keep from getting too close, giving both women an easy in and easy out when their feelings and outside forces become too much.
Mystery/Suspense (3/5): There’s not much in terms of mystery or suspense here. The reveal of who Mal is offers some tension, but I’m glad Sadie doesn’t blow it out of proportion or turn it into a fight.
Tone/Prose (4/5): I went annotation overboard again. There are so many beautiful lines in this book. Cochrun does a stunning job of capturing a queer awakening experience, of conveying the importance of vulnerability, of reminding us it’s never too late to discover our own authentic selves.
Recommended for fans of The Pairing by Casey McQuiston and The Fiancee Farce by Alexandria Bellefleur.
The Vibes
- Sapphic Romance (Lesbian Rep)
- European Adventure
- Late-in-Life Queer Awakening
- Healing From Grief/Loss
- Queer Found Family
- Dual POV
- Forced Proximity
- Self-Discovery
- MCs in Their Mid-to-Late 30s
- Curvy FMC
Quotes
“It’s never too late to start living as your authentic self.”
“Everyone is walking to the same place but getting there in their own way, at their own pace.”
“To me, queerness is about existing outside those gender norms. It’s saying fuck you to the rules that dictate how we look and how we act. It’s true freedom.”
“How boring would life be if we didn’t have anything left to discover about ourselves?”
“Don’t corrupt the innocent elephant like you corrupted me.”
“You’ve loved being corrupted by me.”
“I thought I had to have the right words, the perfect label, for my identity to be valid…But that’s okay if I don’t have all the answers. And it’s okay if the answers change over time…That I’m on a different timeline than other people. And that’s okay…That I am, in fact, exactly where I’m meant to be.”
“Surprisingly well-adjusted. That’s what I want it to say on my tombstone.”
“I thought you wanted it to say sapphic catnip?”
“It can say more than one thing.”
