Another hit by my favorite, making me want to walk 200 miles for fun?
Sadie and Mal were so fun to take this trek with and the exploration of sexuality as an adult is something I deeply value seeing represented in romance especially.

Pls read this!!!!

One of my favorite books of 2025 so far. Alison Cochrun can do no wrong! This hike is now on my bucket list (specifically on a tour for queer women).

5 ⭐️- Not only is this book already one of my favorite reads of the summer, but it might be one of my favorite reads period. It’s one of those stories that is so simple and so easy to enjoy, but I couldn’t stop thinking about it whenever I had to put it down. I’m in love with Sadie & Mal (and the whole Camino family!!!)

The good-
- I loved the interpersonal relationships & the story being set amongst a group of no judgement, only love, acceptance & growth.
- I loved hearing about this journey, I felt like I was trekking through Portugal right along with them. Honestly, maybe I’ll do a Camino one day!
- this book reminded me of my own coming out story- much like Sadie’s, i was half way around the world, with a travel group. Except, I was in the middle of Paris, drunk on red wine and adrenaline & the crazy idea that I’d made it to one of my bucket list destinations, I might as well enjoy it 100% authentically.

The bad-
-Beyond the last edit pass this needs, there’s not a single bad thing about this book. The perfect amount of humor, found family, yearning, and joy.

Thank you NetGalley & Atria Books for the ARC ♥️

Absolutely loved this one. I loved the dual POV and both journeys of our FMCs.
Everything Alison writes - I will read.

Alison Cochrun knocks it out of the park again, this time with a sapphic vacation romance bringing two very different women together on a journey of self-discovery in this swoonworthy, sexy romance.

Sadie Wells has never been out of the country, and yet she agrees to substitute for her travel influencer sister on a walking pilgrimage to Camino through Portugal and Spain. She's really trying to get away from her suffocating life. Almost 35, she runs her grandmother's antique store when she really wants to reupholster furniture. Her meddling mother and sister keep setting her up on dates with men she has to force herself to get through.

Then, on the plane, next to a sexy lesbian in a purple mullet, when there's turbulence and she has a near-death experience, Sadie yells out that she just might be a lesbian. The two strangers have a uniquely vulnerable moment for them both; even though it was clearly instalove/lust (the trip was just two weeks after all), I loved the way this was handled. The two really needed each other to finally feel seen by another.

Turns out that Sadie's sister, who is bisexual, is signed up for a tour for sapphic queers, Beatrix, run by a trans woman. And Sadie will have to work through her shame and regret for not figuring her sexuality out sooner in life, all while rooming with the first woman she's been attracted to and came out to.

As an aside, I found the excerpts of Sadie's blog entries much better written than her influencer sister's, which I found to be strangely dry for a travel influencer. I was however glad that the text was not completely ruined by constant references to social media interactions; that part was refreshingly minimal.

Mal, meanwhile, is very different. A trust fund baby, she is a professional nomad, traveling from woman to woman and adventure to adventure, all to avoid dealing with the pain of her late father rejecting her for being gay. She chases the thrill of falling in love but can never seem to stay in love. She doesn't want to repeat her patterns with Sadie, who's different.

The two oblivious opposites hatch a plan to help Sadie have the queer adolescence she never got to have. But practice quickly turns real as the two learn to navigate the searing heat between them and the reality that this might be more than an escapist summer fling.

I connected with Sadie and her struggles coming out later in life; I appreciate having representation with over-30 queer stories. I too have had very little sexual experience so I related to her struggles of whether she was bi, asexual or lesbian, and how she could know her identity if she didn't act on the attraction. I connected with her realization that she wasn't confident with her sexuality because she didn't know herself well enough, she was too busy people pleasing.

I was rooting for her and Mal to get a clue (Mal! Sadie so did not have a crush on Inez, she had a crush on you, you dolt!) and I found it heartwarming to follow Sadie get her first crush, first kiss, first sunset in Portugal, first sex, first heartbreak, first everything. I loved the concept of how sometimes the first can be forever if the couple complements and challenges the other to grow and become a better person.

I also loved how we really got to see Portugal as if I were there and I felt like I got to know all the quirky side characters in this found family of the queer tour group. I learned the author actually walked the Camino to get inspiration for this book and it showed in her descriptions.

This was a lovely, heartwarming romance, albeitedly with some childish miscommunications that I could overlook because of the character growth of both Sadie and Mal, about how they realized they needed to change to be good for each other.

They even made me cry when they finally got a clue.

This is queer joy that doesn't take the queernorm, cozy route but is still just as lovely, fulfilling and real.

Maybe the stranger on the plane is the only one they can really be vulnerable with, in a way that changes them both.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for the advance review copy. I am leaving this review voluntarily.

I’ll read literally anything Alison Cochrun writes. Her characters always feel so real and relatable and I get attached to them immediately. I think a cute epilogue with Mal and Sadie would have been lovely, but this was such a good book!

4.5⭐ rounded up
Spice level: 🌶️🌶️🌶️/5
Sadie is turning 35 and she isn't sure what she wants. It doesn't seem to be any of the men her sister keeps setting her up on dates with. When she offers to take her sister's place on a tour on the Camino de Santiago, she isn't prepared for all the walking, or what to pack, or even that the entire trip is for queer women. On the flight over she meets Mal, who she confesses she might be a lesbian to during bag turbulence, only to discover Mal is on the same tour.

This was a joy of a book! Yes, the characters are messy and dealing with complicated things, but there's so many lovely relationships in all forms. Also, I'm now debating my own trip on the Camino de Santiago. Give this a read if you enjoy:
- queer romance
- questioning later in life (mid thirties)
- travel adventures
- Portugal/Spain
- furniture revitalization and Property Brothers

Thank you to Atria Books for an ARC on NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own. This book will be published on 9/2/25. I'll be posting to Instagram closer to publication.

“The message we receive from society and our families can be very powerful, and the current political climate makes coming out more fraught for a lot of people.”

Sadie is a hard working antique shop owner, who never finds time for herself. Her sister, a travel influencer, always sets hers up with a bunch of male dates, trying to find her “the one”. Sadie decides she can’t take these dates anymore- she feels stuck in her routines. She offers to take her sister’s place on a trip to Portugal along the Camino do Santiago.

Mal is a wealthy, serial monogamous lesbian who travels around, especially when things get hard. She has a habit of avoiding feeling her feelings. “I’m great at falling in love and horrible at staying in it.”

They meet on an airplane, where heavy turbulence causes Sadie to impromptu come out to the stranger in the window seat next to her, Mal. Sadie believes she’s run out of time, being 35 and possibly a lesbian.

Sadie is mortified, but grateful she won’t see this stranger again; Until she finds out that Mal will be joining her on walking the Camino.

Sadie and Mal make a plan to have Sadie use the trip to relive her adolescence and have coming of age experiences that she wasn’t able to have growing up. Which, in turn, causes Mal to also relive experiences she didn’t get.

I love the strangers to friends (with educational benefits) to lovers trope!!! I love the baby gay getting help from an experienced gay, and then the lines blur. “I need you to kiss me. For science.” UGH SO GOOD.

I wasn’t sure if I was going to connect with this story, as someone who does not hike or go on walks, and typically the social media influencer style of writing bores me. But the way this was written was raw and beautiful. It was overall a road to self discovery.

The entire group that joined the trip was what really brought the whole thing together. The insecurities of not being “queer” enough when surrounded by queer people really resonated with me. Feeling lost, unsure, untethered to where you’re at in life. Oooof that hit me in the feels. As she says in the book, “it’s never too late to live as your authentic self.”

My biggest gripe honestly is that at one point, Sadie spent 30 minutes having to “convince” Mal to have sex with her. I know they had discussed practice flirting, practice kissing, and then practice sex was gonna be next. And when we get to Mal’s POV, Mal had also been wanting to do it, regardless of Sadie having to beg her to do it. Maybe I read it wrong, but I really wish it didn’t come across like coercion as I was reading it.

Sidenote: The reference of Kristen Stewart playing Joan Jett absolutely sent me!!! One of my biggest crushes growing up came from her in the movie The Runaways.

Overall, this was sweet and cute with lots of self discovery later in life. I enjoyed it more than I thought I would!

Thank you NetGalley for allowing me to ARC read in exchange for an honest review!

What an absolute gem of a novel!

This is a beautiful exploration of finding oneself later in life, not just in terms of sexuality, but also in terms of what they want for themselves and their future. It’s forced proximity with a European backdrop. The banter is excellent and the emotional beats hit me straight in the heart. I selected this on a whim, but it truly feels like it found me.

Such a hug of a story.

Thank you to NetGalley and Atria books for the arc in exchange for an honest review.

Cochrun is so back for me. I loved her first book, liked the second and was meh at best on the third but this was fantastic. I loved both the main characters and it was a travel book without being so over the top it feels like they spend half the time talking about the city. It was romantic and vulnerable and heartfelt and the cast of side characters were fun even if you didn’t totally fall in love with any of them.

I really enjoyed this! The mix of characters were great. And it was fun to think about what it would be like to go on a trip like walking to Camino. I also really identified with Sadie, as someone coming into my queer identity later in life and feeling like I’m not “queer enough” or that I’m discovering things too late. It was a lovely, fun read!

The author does it to me again. I loved her first sapphire Christmas romance and this second novel just keeps charming me. The writing is excellent. The MCs Journeys of self discovery are uplifting and the romance is swoon-worthy. I loved every minute of this romance and I can't wait for the author's next offering.

Thank you so much to Netgalley for accepting my request! Honestly this book was such a nice surprise. This is my first time reading something from this author and it won’t certainly be the last time! I loved the story so much, I found the characters to be entertaining and well written. I recommend!

I want to thank NetGalley and Atria Books for this ARC in exchange for an honest review!

this book was really an adventure. I just didn’t feel the two mains had any chemistry. They were total opposites and had not much in common besides very few little things.. the adventure part of the story was interesting. Self discovery played a huge role in this book which was super important in my opinion. I just wanted the 2 main characters to have had way more chemistry between eachother!

Alison Cochrun is an auto-buy author for me and she never disappoints. Every book is better than the last (even when I think that is an impossible feat to manage). This book will make you laugh and smile and consider trekking along the coast of Portugal with a motley group of queers. What more could you ask for in a book than that?

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

no notes. all the feelings. "every step she takes" proves there is no timeline to finding yourself and who you're meant to be. sadie has never been anywhere and has no idea who she is as a person. when given the chance, she word vomits all of her thoughts and feelings on a fellow passenger, mal, who she never thinks she'll see again. mal is running from everything and never sits still. when both of them end up on the camino, sadie will learn what it means to find herself and mal finally learns what it means to be in the moment.

An enthralling sapphic romance! I was sad when it ended. A lush European setting makes for an evocative keeper of a novel..

☆Light Spoilers ahead! (mainly about side characters)☆

Alison Cochrun hits it out of the park once again with this amazing and hilarious new entry into her universe of characters and stories.

As someone who didn't realize her own queerness until college while many of my peers had known for years, I wish I'd had my own fairy god-dyke to guide me through my delayed queer adolescence like Sadie and Mal.

Like Sadie, I also sort of f'ed off to another country shortly after coming to terms that I was not as straight as I thought I'd been, but In my case, I was studying abroad for four months in the south of France basically by myself. But like Sadie, that upheaval of everyday life in a new European climate really woke me up and allowed me to figure out who I was and who I wanted to be. Unlike Sadie, though, I didn't leave with a hot masc millionaire girlfriend.

Following their whirlwind romance across their Camino felt fast but believable, and their chemistry dripped off the page like red wine (let's ignore the fact that I hate reds. That doesn't matter here.) Do they have their issues? Absolutely. Mal specifically has issues with communication, which often leads to gaps in the story where they're just talking about how they want to talk to each other but can't for random reasons. Whatever, lol. I guess it's pretty realistic, as much as it's irksome.

Also, seeing how they bonded not only as a duo but as a family with their fellow travelers was so refreshing and heartwarming. Juggling such a big ensemble cast is hard, but it works beautifully here. Every character was unique, and I can't necessarily imagine the group without any of them. Especially Ari and Stephano. Love that silly gay Italian man.

Speaking of, I connected the dots with Ari. I love that for her. I'm glad to have gotten some more development for her outside of her role in Kiss Her Once for Me. Maybe it's just because I can totally picture her as a real person in my favorite downtown Portland coffee shop. Maybe I just go to too many Portland coffee shops? Maybe I just have too many friends just like her. Maybe Im just always happy to see hometown representation in books? IDK, im going on for way too long about such a small part of the book. I just love connected book universes like that.

Rambling aside, Every Step She Takes was an absolute joy to read. Alison Cochrun did NOT disappoint. If you want a book about journeys and character growth, this is the story for you. This book is incredibly funny, relatable, and makes you think both on the growth of Sadie and Mal, but also yourself. And that's so refreshing in such an uncertain time.

Read it :)

4.75⭐️ out of 5⭐️

4.5⭐
PG-13🌶️

Alison Cochrun is such a gem and I just love how she tells stories. And I especially love stories about queer people going on long thru hikes (see Something Wild & Wonderful by Anita Kelly). I loved Sadie's story of finding herself and her identity in this book and think it made this book truly special. For the gays, the hikers, the wanderers and all the people still figuring things out when you thought you'd have your shit together already, this book is for you.

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for the eARC. I don’t typically read sapphic books, I don’t connect with them as well as I do other genres of queer media. That being said I have enjoyed Conchrun’s other books and knew I needed to give this one a shot. I am glad I did. Sadie’s journey of self discovery was what I think a lot of late bloomer queers can relate to. Feeling like you’re behind, missing out, not worthy, etc. Mal as her guide in that self discovery is even better. The whole crew of sapphics and adjacent being there to cheer her on was wonderful. Plus who doesn’t appreciate forced proximity (positive force) as a trope for getting together. The messages said to both Sadie and Mal during their moments of doubt and disbelief in themselves were messages I’ve needed to hear. I truly appreciated getting to read this story. 4.5 stars if it was available.