LIVE FREE AND HIKE: FINDING GRACE ON 48 SUMMITS

The challenge of trekking through mountainous terrain helps a woman tackle the treacherous peaks and valleys of her life in this travel memoir.

Just before the start of the new millennium, Magoon, an environmental scientist at the New Hampshire Department of Environmental Services, reached the summit of Mount Washington, one of 48 mountains with elevations of at least 4,000 feet in New Hampshire’s White Mountains. Fifteen years would pass before she would summit the remaining 47. During her 27-year marriage, the author says, she’d been subject to fits of anger from her controlling husband; she became afraid to ask him for anything and quick to blame herself when things went wrong. However, she summoned the courage to visit her job’s crisis center, began seeing a therapist, and soon divorced her husband. Finally free to make her own decisions, she vowed to join the “Four Thousand Footer Club” and scale the aforementioned mountain peaks. She tells of learning survival techniques like “STOP” (sit, take stock, observe, and plan)to assess challenging situations and take appropriate actions. During therapy and life-coaching sessions, she also learned helpful adages such as “action is rewarded.” She applied her newfound skills while navigating day-to-day life as well as mountain topography. After she climbed mountains 17 and 18, however, her life was turned upside down when she learned disturbing news about her ex-husband. In an introduction, Magoon’s life coach, Emily Clement, notes that “Linda’s transformation didn’t happen one mountain at a time…her healing has been a long, slow journey that happened one small step at a time,” and this effectively captures why her story is likely to resonate with readers: It clearly speaks to the unpredictability of healing through her accounts of her struggles to overcome grief, betrayal, shame, and self-doubt. She also includes the hiking challenges she faced; however, the mountains she scales lack notable distinguishing features, which has the effect of making the details of individual climbs feel tedious. Nonetheless, Linda’s dry wit, candor, and perseverance will win many readers over.

An often engaging story of a hiking enthusiast regaining her autonomy after a divorce.