Ottawa book lovers and armchair travellers have a new title to add to the summer pile: Finding Grace: A Camino de Santiago Story, the new novel from Canadian author, entrepreneur, and long-distance pilgrim Rocco Rossi. It's a book built for anyone who has ever dreamed of lacing up their boots and walking until the noise of everyday life finally goes quiet.
A Novel Forged on Foot
Rossi is no casual traveller. He has completed 23 variations of the famed Camino de Santiago across Spain, Portugal, and France, logging more than 14,000 kilometres along the way. That's not a weekend hobby — it's a life's worth of pilgrimage, and it shows in the writing. Finding Grace takes all those kilometres and distills them into a story that feels both intimate and expansive, the kind of book that makes you feel the weight of the pack on your shoulders and the dust on your boots.
Rather than a straight travel memoir, Rossi opts for fiction, using the novel form to dig into the emotional terrain of the journey — the doubt, the small kindnesses between strangers, and the slow unspooling of grace that the Camino is famous for delivering. The result reads like a journey you take alongside the characters, one step at a time.
Why It Resonates in Ottawa
The Camino may wind through Spain, but the appetite for long, contemplative walks is alive and well right here in Ottawa. This is a city of trail people — think the Rideau Canal pathway, the Sentier des Voyageurs, and the endless networks of Gatineau Park just across the river. Plenty of Ottawa residents have walked the Camino themselves or have it parked firmly on the bucket list, and local hiking and pilgrimage groups keep that spirit going year-round.
For those readers, Finding Grace hits a familiar nerve. It's a reminder that the meaning of a walk isn't just the destination — it's the company you keep, the strangers who become friends, and the quiet realizations that only arrive once you've put enough distance between yourself and your inbox. It's an easy book to read on a bench along the canal, dreaming of a bigger trek ahead.
A Read for the Journey
Whether you're a seasoned pilgrim, a casual Ottawa trail walker, or simply someone who loves a thoughtful story about the road, Rossi's novel offers a way to take the walk without leaving the city. And for anyone seriously plotting their own Camino, it's the kind of book that might just tip you from "someday" to "this year."
It's a fitting pick for a summer in Ottawa, where the trails are open, the days are long, and the urge to wander is hard to ignore.
Source: Ottawa Life Magazine (ottawalife.com).
