A story of tenacity, told with humility, in a West Africa experienced deeply at the pace of a walk. I loved this book - its thoughtfulness, turn of phrase and lightness of touch as the author escapes one life to rediscover another.

Martineau segues effortlessly from practical desert challenges to striking encounters... [he] finds trust in the road and learns to trust his unrest... there is a sense that the waypoints he encounters inspire a new, and encouraging, optimism.

[Martineau] is fine and thoughtful company for the journey, sensitive to the fraught history of Europeans who have used Africa and Africans as a backdrop for their exploits

Waypoints wonderfully explores how walking animates resilience in times of stress, anxiety and worry, illustrating, through personal experience, how the journey is often our collective human goal.

An astonishing dream-like journey... Martineau has written a deeply affecting book which sears itself on the memory like the sun of the western Sahel.

A wonderful book.

An epic journey and a book worthy of it. A thrilling and poignant meditation on the elusive reasons for getting out of bed in the morning; a dazzling kaleidoscope of colour, sensation, and time. An important new voice has arrived.

Terrific... a travel-writing gem.

Stepping out in the spirit of Bruce Chatwin and Rebecca Solnit, Robert Martineau ranges through forest and desert, literature and philosophy, in search of an answer to why we are drawn to wander. Although he walks over a thousand miles, Waypoints is less a tale of endurance than a form of meditation. In elegant, searingly honest prose, he treads the same line as John Muir, for whom 'going out was really going in'.

As soon as I picked it up, I couldn't stop reading... immediate and soulful and searching.

At the age of 27, Martineau, a lawyer in London, quit his job and embarked on a 1,000 mile walk with a backpack through West Africa... This is his story, beautifully-written, of how his pilgrimage of sorts changed him forever.

An extraordinary, dreamlike journey through west Africa. The evocative, delicate writing leaves you feeling the very ground under his feet as he makes his way on this most astonishing pilgrimage in search of adventure and meaning.

This is a book about how to travel: curious, observant, informed and poignantly honest. It is a marvellous and sensitive portrayal of the author's inner and the outer world.

His touch is light, his brushwork vivid, the account is full of surprises and refreshingly free of pomposity... A poignant illustration of the random kindness of strangers.

Waypoints is a paean to the transformative power of a long journey on foot, and to walking's capacity to define and illuminate our sense of self. Martineau writes with remarkable intelligence and honesty, and a singular reverence for the people and places he encounters along the way. A magnificent book.

Waypoints is an insightful, personal and genuinely moving account of what can be achieved with two feet, a backpack and a desire to keep on going... Waypoints is a rousing celebration of all that can be learned by getting off the path - this is an exceptional debut.

With just forty possessions on his back, he walks, remembers, reflects and encounters. Martineau weaves together philosophy (Nietzsche, Thoreau), history (the slave trade and its scars) and glorious descriptions of the landscape, all the while demonstrating the power of walking to heal mental wounds.

Tired of long hours at his desk in a London law firm, the 27-year-old flies to Ghana, and starts putting one foot in front of the other. His stroll ends up covering 1,000 miles and three countries... many people struggle with what's going on between their ears but [Martineau has] found a simple solution: get walking.

An engaging meditation on life and walking and a fascinating glimpse into Martineau's interior journey.

This is a vivid, beautifully observed account of a trek through West Africa, but its true power lies in the way Martineau's deeply personal journey becomes a meditation on movement, belonging and being. Eclectic, spare, and at times redolent of Erling Kagge and Bruce Chatwin - there is a hint of greatness here.

Waypoints takes you into Africa in a different way, an intimate and grounded way that made me want to visit. What more can you ask of a book?

The nail-biting suspense and spooky atmosphere of Sarah Pearse's thrilling debut novel kept me reading until late in the night. I loved Sarah's masterful descriptions of the Alpine setting, the creepy history of the hotel, and the growing sense of danger as the hapless characters are cut off from the outside world by a massive storm . . . just as the realisation dawns that a deranged killer is on the loose.

Tense, claustrophobic and chilling in every sense of the word.

Dark and suspenseful - I had shivers running down my spine as I read this chilling thriller.

An addictive, creepy and twisting read. The perfect gothic story for a cold February night.

An eerie, atmospheric novel that had me completely on the edge of my seat.

[A] menacing, creepy debut [...] There are echoes of Hitchcock and du Maurier, but Pearse has her own distinctive, emotional voice - one to be admired.

Tense, chilling and full of surprises.

Locked-room mysteries a la Agatha Christie are proving to be very popular right now, and this one doesn't disappoint.

This atmospheric chiller has a few shocks up its sleeve.

A mix of whodunnit and psychological thriller with hints of horror, this fine debut [...] is smartly structured and often powerful.

Spooky, chilling and claustrophobic.

This impressive debut is a twist on the classic locked-room mystery in a wonderfully eerie Gothic setting. Its sharp prose builds suspense through a series of twists that will send an Alpine chill up your spine, building to an unpredictable finale. This clever, compelling thriller deserves to be a bestseller and marks out Sarah Pearse as one to watch.

Want a book that's going to leave you chilled to the bone? This is it!

Sarah Pearse's chilling debut is making waves. The Sanatorium certainly has an eerie, cinematic appeal [...] With whispers of The Shining in setting and The Girl on the Train in pace.

I absolutely loved The Sanatorium - it gave me all the wintry thrills and chills. It was just wonderful.

Genuinely scary and deliciously atmospheric, and one of the best books of 2021, this international bestseller is guaranteed to give you goosebumps.

What a page-turner! Like Agatha Christie crossed with Scandi noir, and doing with Swiss mountains what Jane Harper books do with the Australian outback. Loved it, and can't wait for the next Elin book!