In 1885, a young girl is afflicted with a mysterious disease that threatens her life. The only way to avoid dying from the disease is to keep moving. If she stays in one place more for more than about three days, the symptoms return and she will die if she does not move on.

 Thus is the setup for Douglas Westerbeke’s debut novel, A Short Walk Through the Wide World (Avid Reader Press, coming April 2024).

Beautiful cover!

This woman at the heart of the book, Aubry Torval, is an interesting chara...