The Unlikely Pilgrimage Of Harold Fry: The uplifting and redemptive No. 1 Sunday Times bestseller (Harold Fry, 1)

Product Information

Maureen is the third book of Rachel Joyce’s Harold Fry trilogy. As such, it completes the story begun 10 years ago with The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry by allowing his wife, Maureen, to venture into the world herself in search of answers or closure on problems that have been crushing her for years. She will drive, not walk, but she will also make a northward journey, encountering strangers and having no clue how to deal with them. She is not Harold. Along the way, we learn of her love for Harold but also of her biggest disappointments and her distrust of much of everything else in her life. Thanks you to Rachel Joyce, Dial Press, and NetGalley for this poignant story which has already published. Definitely recommend this to all who have read The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry and the Love Song of Queenie Hennessy as it completes Maureen’s story. While I was on the edge of a full confession, you were admiring a roof extension. I unclipped my bag. I took out a handkerchief. The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry is where this series begins telling Harold's story of walking 600+ miles to hand deliver a letter to Queenie Hennessy who's gravely ill and spending her final days in hospice. Harold believes if he delivers his letter, Queenie will live long enough to receive it.

Told in simple, emotionally-honest prose, with a mischievous bite, this is a novel about the journey we all must take to learn who we are; it is about loving and letting go. And most of all it is about finding joy in unexpected places and at times we least expect. It’s going to be a long trip. It’s ten years since Harold make his long trek to visit Queenie Hennessy, and since then, Maureen has been haunted by something she knew about Queenie that she has never disclosed to Harold.EC: What I thought was remarkable is how consistent her voice was from the first book to this third book, which is 10 years later. Maureen has settled into life after Harold’s epic journey. And finds it hard to make friends easily. Ten years later she gets a message that in Queenies Garden they have put a sculpture of her late son David. She misses him terribly and decides to make the journey up north to see this garden for herself, even though this is a challenge for her. But she must do this. But unlike Harold she decides to drive there. But she seems to get lost on the way as everything has changed over the years and she asks someone for directions. Which is not an easy task for her. But she eventually gets there, with Harold on the phone cheering her on.

The book is written beautifully with the reading audience coming to know and welcome Maureen into our hearts. It is a worthy ending to the journey of the Fry's EC: It's so nice to have you. Thanks so much. I wanted to actually talk to you a little bit about some of the things that you wrote in your prologue, which I thought was so interesting and just really added a lot of color to this trilogy. You said that you hadn't thought that Harold's story was a trilogy at first, and it was a reader who suggested to you that it absolutely had to be. Can you tell me about that experience? The whole trilogy of the books I think has been about my working out my process of grief with my dad, I was never really ready until very recently to think about kind of facing that last... kind of essential stage of letting go." Thoughtful themes in Maureen include finding yourself (yes, even as an adult), friendship, hospitality, bravery, resolve, problem-solving, independence, and grief. Trilogy

Life-affirming. If you loved The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry and The Love Song of Miss Queenie Hennessy, make time to read this finale to the trilogy ... A touching tale about heartbreak and healing. Good Housekeeping

Even though there are obstacles to overcome, at its heart, Maureen is a character-driven story. Creating complex and quirky characters is what Rachel Joyce does best. Themes At least he was happy, at least he was safe. And his health, too. At least he had that. It wasn’t that he was losing his mind, rather that he was deliberately taking things out of it that he no longer needed.” But now she too makes a journey into the unknown and finds a way, through confronting what she does not want to see, to heal a wound that has been like a splinter inside her. There is also the film of The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry, starring Jim Broadbent and Penelope Wilton, for which I wrote the screenplay, and which will be coming to cinemas in the UK on April 28th. Queenie thought her first letter would be the end of the story. She was wrong. It was the beginning.THE AUTHOR: Rachel Joyce has written over 20 original afternoon plays for BBC Radio 4, and major adaptations for both the Classic Series, Woman's Hour and also a TV drama adaptation for BBC 2. In 2007 she won the Tinniswood Award for best radio play. She moved to writing after a twenty-year career in theatre and television, performing leading roles for the RSC, the Royal National Theatre, The Royal Court, and Cheek by Jowl, winning a Time Out Best Actress award and the Sony Silver. She lives with her family in Gloucestershire. Now it's ten years later, and time to hear from Maureen, Harold's wife. She's about to take a journey of her own and, in the mix, gives her perspective of all that's happened before and after Harold's journey to visit Queenie. Maureen is a lesson in struggling to find oneself. She is afraid of friendship, and is fearful of what lies ahead. Fortunately, through Harold's trip, she has reconnected with her husband, but has not yet reconnected with herself. But I do think a lot about those things, and I love being surprised by the writing process, which I constantly am. I mean, I attempt to plot and plan, but I'm a terrible planner. I can give you a really brilliant plotline once I've written the book. But I have to write the book to find out what works. And that means that for me, approaching the story from the outside and saying, "Well, this will happen, this will happen, this will happen because these are what's supposed to happen" doesn't really work for me because it's in the writing it that I get right in there and I work out what the characters would do. I loved both The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry and The Love Song of Miss Queenie Hennessy from this series but the final one left me feeling very disappointed. I couldn’t connect to the main character, Maureen, at all and frankly, I was quite bored sometimes while reading this one. It was very repetitive in the fact that Maureen whines and complains and gets angry over and over again. Rachel Joyce usually writes about the ordinary in an extraordinary way but this one just fell flat.