“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.

This was my second Alison Cochrun book and man did I enjoy it. I loved the concept of them doing the Camino (not that I’ll ever do it, but fun to read about) and the concept of finding yourself on this journey while finding friendship and love. The writing was so well done, it felt like I could picture it. I loved seeing Sadie grow out of her shell and Mal fix her trauma. While I did love the two characters, I will say some times the chemistry wasn’t there and I’m not a big insta-love kinda person. I also felt that I struggled to picture them as late 30s as they were written in a way that felt more young and juvenile for that. But nonetheless, i still loved the feel good, late queer coming out, romance and would recommend.

Thanks so NetGalley and Atria books for the ARC for my honest review.

I have loved every single book Alison Cochrun has written, and this one was no exception. It was just so easy to get lost in, and so while I originally intended only to read the first couple of chapters, I ended up finishing the whole book in about 24 hours. I have no regrets.

One of the things that came across really strongly in this book, which I absolutely loved, was a profound sense of love for the whole Camino experience, and even if I hadn't been told at the very start of the book that the author had done a similar pilgrimage herself, the way that the whole journey was written seems to reflect an understanding of the whole thing that only really comes from personal experience. While it was a fictionalised version, of course, it felt very grounded throughout, and I really liked that about it.

Sadie and Mal were both brilliant characters - absolutely messy, mostly confused, partly in denial - and I really believed in the chemistry between them. It felt like they balanced each other well, and they got along well pretty much the very beginning. I think the timing on the development of their relationship was perfect, and I felt that the third-act breakup was presented mostly as a natural conclusion which neither of them felt like they could reject at the time, and so set up their reunion excellently.

The entire cast of characters was wonderful (special shoutout to Vera, always love to see aroace rep!) and it was particularly lovely to see them all change in their own ways throughout the book as well as the main characters. The exploration of what it means to be queer, and the whole idea that there is no such thing as a universal queer experience, was a fantastic theme to see running throughout, and I think it was lent more weight by being discussed a little through the perspectives of the whole Camino group, rather than just focusing on Sadie and Mal.

I think this book makes for a fantastic summer read, and although I would absolutely recommend this to anyone, I think it would particularly appeal to anyone who's still trying to figure themself out in their thirties, or who thinks they might have come to the life they really want 'too late' (really, there is no such thing as too late, and this book would love to prove it to you).

This might be my favorite Alison Cochrun book. It was filled with so much love and fear and pain and happiness and joy and literally every single emotion (but didn’t make me bawl my eyes out like Here We Go Again did hahaha). Mal and Sadie… truly the most perfect meet cute I’ve ever read… and by meet cute I mean telling secrets during plane turbulence. But no seriously, fate brought these two incredible women together and I’m so grateful for their story, and especially Sadie’s story, to be out in the world. Not only Mal and Sadie but all the side characters added so much life and impact to this book. The little misfit group all walking in hopes of self discovery and all eventually finding what they were looking for. Truly a beautiful, inspiring, loving story that I hope everyone picks up and enjoys!

This was very cute! My one problem is that the ending was completely unbelievable. After all the buildup with what happened between Mal and her father, the “resolution” was a let down. I loved the scenery, the side characters, and Sadie’s entire journey, but I was left wanting more from Mal as a love interest and in terms of character development.

Yes some of my dislike for this book is petty Europeanism. I'm not a big fan of American authors writing idealistic travel romances that sound like it's written for tourists. And this book is written for tourists and and a certain type of queer people. It's hitting all the clichés of a questioning queer woman finding herself in Europe with a very lesbian local woman who can teach her everything about being queer. I'm not the audience for this book. I'm far enough in my queer journey that I'm tired of this trope that oozes of insecurity towards very visibly queer women. I'm also too European for this. Unlike what the cover suggests, Mal is a British-Portuguese white woman actually named Maëlys. Maëlys is a French-Breton name that is quite common in France but maybe also England, but certainly not Portugal. It's okay to have a rare name. However, unlike what is suggested, it's not pronounced Miley but rather Mah-eh-leess but you know small annoyance that I could have gotten over.

My problem is how self-inserty and wish-fulfilling this book was. Unfortunately for a totally different audience than me. I am not a middle aged feminine woman in America who yearns to have her first queer experience with a (masc lesbian) woman, in the utopia of Europe. I'm tired of the commodification of the masc lesbina love interest who is so experienced at being queer and will be your teacher (and also is super rich) who's barely treated as her own character beyond the great sex she provides and teach. What does Mal have going for herself? A bad string of relationships (still so cliché) and grieving the estranged father who kicked her out for being queer. but don't worry this comes with a lot of money and she doesn't care that much. Like it's very obviously a book about Sadie's discovery journey and Mal is just here along for the ride and provide queer counseling.

I absolutely want more stories where people realize their queerness late in life. It is SO easy to do and Cochrun handles that story line with such magic and grace. This was a a sweet sapphic romance with more heart than I've seen in many! You'll delight in the travels around Europe, but you'll stay even more for the found family aspects, and the lessons on how to truly love and care for each other as we are.

Alison Cochrun crafts such compelling sapphic romances. She has fully fleshed out characters who have their own interesting personal journeys in addition to the romantic plot. In Every Step She Takes I loved watching Sadie come into her own (and start a romance with Mal) while taking a spur of the moment trip to walk 200 miles along the Camino de Santiago in Portugal and Spain. There were so many vivid descriptions of gorgeous views and delicious food. It definitely made the story and the setting come alive.

In addition to the chemistry between Sadie and Mal, I think my favorite part of the book was watching Sadie’s journey with her queerness. She’s 35 years old and thinks that she should know her sexuality by now, but is only beginning to suspect that she might be a lesbain. It was a lot of fun watching Mal take Sadie under her wing and show her different ways to have a queer adolescence in her 30s. In addition, there’s a lot of poignant conversations and touching moments between the characters.There’s also “practice” kissing and other silly romance novel antics that I always eat up.

I think I was hoping for a little bit more in the end of seeing where things go for them as a couple. But overall this was a lovely read! Definitely check it out if you enjoy fun, sexy, queer romances.