Family Epic

Summer Darling is a not so typical American teenager, longing to return to Spain and walk another route of the famed Camino de Santiago, but when Covid hits and locks down the world, Summer’s Camino plans screech to a halt.
As Summer waits in frustration, she convinces her cousin Lou to join her when the world does reopen. Problem is Lou’s Mom, Tilly, who seems fixated on making Summer’s life a waking nightmare, and is convinced if they go, the sky will fall and crush Lou underneath.
But the girls are persuasive and in the Fall of 2022 they’re off for Portugal to have the adventure of their lives; until Lou gets seriously injured in an accident with a young bicyclist from the States. That’s when things get complicated. Summer starts to fall for the 20-something bike rider and it turns out Lou isn’t quite who Summer thought she was. Even Lou isn’t who Lou thought she was. And if Lou is to live, Tilly will have to open a vault of secrets she hasn’t accessed for eighteen years.

Summer Darling is a not so typical American teenager, longing to return to Spain and walk another route of the famed Camino de Santiago, but when Covid hits and locks down the world, Summer’s Camino plans screech to a halt.
As Summer waits in frustration, she convinces her cousin Lou to join her when the world does reopen. Problem is Lou’s Mom, Tilly, who seems fixated on making Summer’s life a waking nightmare, and is convinced if they go, the sky will fall and crush Lou underneath.
But the girls are persuasive and in the Fall of 2022 they’re off for Portugal to have the adventure of their lives; until Lou gets seriously injured in an accident with a young bicyclist from the States. That’s when things get complicated. Summer starts to fall for the 20-something bike rider and it turns out Lou isn’t quite who Summer thought she was. Even Lou isn’t who Lou thought she was. And if Lou is to live, Tilly will have to open a vault of secrets she hasn’t accessed for eighteen years.

Fifteen-year-old SUMMER DARLING and her grandmother have left their home in southern California to fly to the rugged coast of northern Spain, following a crypticnote and pages from a forty-year-old travel diary neither knew existed. The answers to a family mystery, Grandma Pat is now certain, lie along the ancient pilgrimage trail called the Camino de Santiago.

To be honest, Summer isn’t all that interested in the journal. She’s learned the hard way to view family with suspicion and keep outsiders at arm’s length. But Summer will do anything for Grandma Pat, and so she hefts a backpack and sets out for a walk of more than 500 miles.

When tragedy strikes, though, Summer has to make a choice. Can she continue the journey alone, trekking across a country she knows almost nothing about? And will the answers she finds on the journal pages fill the aching, lonely hole in her own heart?

As she explores the sunny beaches of the Camino del Norte and the wide-open spaces of the Camino Francés, Summer will discover friends in the most unexpected places, beauty on the most difficult days, and more than a little “Camino magic.”

Fifteen-year-old SUMMER DARLING and her grandmother have left their home in southern California to fly to the rugged coast of northern Spain, following a crypticnote and pages from a forty-year-old travel diary neither knew existed. The answers to a family mystery, Grandma Pat is now certain, lie along the ancient pilgrimage trail called the Camino de Santiago.

To be honest, Summer isn’t all that interested in the journal. She’s learned the hard way to view family with suspicion and keep outsiders at arm’s length. But Summer will do anything for Grandma Pat, and so she hefts a backpack and sets out for a walk of more than 500 miles.

When tragedy strikes, though, Summer has to make a choice. Can she continue the journey alone, trekking across a country she knows almost nothing about? And will the answers she finds on the journal pages fill the aching, lonely hole in her own heart?

As she explores the sunny beaches of the Camino del Norte and the wide-open spaces of the Camino Francés, Summer will discover friends in the most unexpected places, beauty on the most difficult days, and more than a little “Camino magic.”