Walking to Mercury

Writer, priestess, and visionary Maya Greenwood has remained true to her one moment of connection to the land and its spirits. But now, approaching her fortieth year, she has lost her way. Seeking to reclaim her power, she goes on a pilgrimage to her sister Debby's remote mountain clinic in Nepal, their dead mother's ashes in her backpack. Together, Maya hopes she and Debby can heal their fractured family bonds, allowing Maya to finally lay her past to rest and breathe new life into her future. Yet the past proves heavier than Maya ever suspected, as she begins the laborious climb through a landscape of memories. In the journal given to her by Johanna Weaver - her soul sister, her mirror, her lover - she relives the ecstatic union they first formed as teenage rebels, a union still challenged by convention and Johanna's fierce commitment to her African foremothers. In the letters from Rio Connolly - that wild, impulsive, doomed youth - she reenters the dreams they once built together as outlaws blazing a path for change. Now Rio, transformed by his own struggles, calls to her across ten thousand miles. Whatever Maya decides will have dire consequences. If she rejects Rio's offer, she will close a door forever on an opportunity to reclaim her past. But if she goes back to him, she must reveal an intimate secret kept far too long - a secret that could shatter Maya's vision for the future.