S4E4: Global Launch Day - The Pilgrim's Table

Buen Camino and welcome back to the Sacred Steps Podcast. Today, we have a little micro podcast. I've been waiting a long, long time to record this particular episode. I'm truly excited to say that as of today, 07/01/2026, The Pilgrim's Table is officially globally on sale. Paperback, hardcover, eBook, all of it.

If you've pre ordered, your copy is on its way. If you haven't, go to Amazon and search The Pilgrim's Table to order your copy. For those just finding this podcast, The Pilgrim's Table is my first novel, book one in what I'm calling the Camino Chronicles series, published through Sacred Steps books. It's been years of drafts, red ink from people who love me enough to be honest, and more than a few conversations with my wife about whether a particular chapter actually worked. It didn't, most of the time.

But today, it's real and it's yours. So, what is it actually about? The Pilgrim's Table opens on an October evening in Muxia, Spain, the place medieval pilgrims called the end of the world. Five strangers arrive there separately, each at the end of their own camino. A Boston woman who has just walked 1,600 kilometers away from a twenty three year marriage.

A young man, eight months sober, finishing his walk on a bus because his body gave out before his resolve did. A Canadian couple on their fourth Camino quietly circling the question of what retirement is actually for, a Spanish teacher carrying her dead brother's stone the entire way and their host, a French chef who built the inn but has never once walked the Camino himself. One communal meal. Five people who came for very different reasons and a conversation that turns out to be more honest than any of them planned for. It's a book about the weight we carry without naming it, the questions we keep half answered, and the strangers who sometimes understand us faster than the people who've known us for years.

Here's the honest version of why this book exists. I never set out to write a novel. I started walking pilgrimages back in 2019, the Camino, then the Via Francigena into Rome, the Pilgrim's Way from London to Canterbury, the Way Of Saint Cuthbert, sections of the California Mission's Way, and I tried more than once to write about those walks as straight non fiction, a travelogue, mile markers and blister care and nice sunsets. Didn't work. Non fiction gave me the geography, but it couldn't hold what actually happens on a Camino, the way a stranger's one honest sentence over dinner can undo something you've been carrying for years.

Fiction was the only form that let me tell the truth about that. So, the Pilgrim's Table became the way I could finally show what those conversations feel like instead of just describing where they happened. I also retired last year after nearly thirty years in hospitality specifically to make room for this, for my family, and for finishing what these pilgrims started with me on the trail. So here's what I'd ask of you today, if this book means anything to you, buy it today, not eventually. Thepilgrimstable.com has signed copies and the full bookstore or grab it on Amazon, Apple Books or through your local independent bookstore via bookshop.org, all linked in the show notes.

Every one of those purchases today, especially on Amazon, genuinely moves the needle for a debut novel from a brand new imprint. If you finish it and it lands for you, a short, honest review helps the next reader find their way to it more than almost anything else I could do. Three sentences is plenty. And if you're part of a book club, we've got a full discussion guide and bulk order pricing ready at thepilgrimstable.com. I'd love to be part of that conversation even if I can only join a few of them live.

That's it. That's the news I've been sitting on. The Pilgrim's Table, out today, everywhere books are sold. Thank you for walking this far with me already. I'll see you at The Pilgrim's Table available today on amazon.com.

Buen Camino.