A novel of intrigue and revenge set along the Camino (Northern Spain)

12th October 2026

The Pact by Lisa Walker, a novel of intrigue and revenge set along the Camino de Santiago, Northern Spain.

Tess has managed to get a place at the prestigious Ravensthorpe College, where she will be studying writing under the tutelage of renowned and respected writer, Lula, with quirky ideas about how to get the best out of her students. The big driver behind her decision to study is her mother, who has encouraged her prodigious writing skills since she was born, even naming Tess after a great literary character. Tess is well aware that her competencies aren’t exceptional but to curry favour with her mother, she gives it a go. And within the first few days, she can barely keep her head above water.

Their charismatic tutor is found dead and three years down the line, several students have been invited to walk the Camino as a salve to her memory and to their souls. Ethan, it transpires, is one the people invited, and he is now a rather grand, rising star in literary circles and Tess feels a reckoning is due. So she will be writing mainly about him as he walks the trail. She even has a contract for a piece about this literary star.

There are plenty of secrets, with unfinished business that plague the Ravensthorpe cohort, with anonymous missives and spiritual events,  and as they cover immense distances through Don Quixote country around Pamplona, to Mañeru, Villamayor, Mansilla, with the destination of Santiago alway in mind, their shared past histories come to haunt them.

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Tessa, for various reasons, ends up with a cross and a donkey as she labours her way towards the finish line, and inadvertently she appears to others as quite a devout religious person. What a vision she must have been.

The chapters swing between the present and the past, and occasionally I got a little confused. But the story bowls along, it’s a bit implausible but, of course, the iconic backdrop informs a lot of the characters’ behaviour as they trawl back to their shared past lives.

This will be a good and quite entertaining read for anyone who has walked the Camino, or, who intends to tackle it.

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