Author Raynor Winn's new book, On Winter Hill, is set for release. Photo / Getty Images
Raynor Winn is to publish a new book despite the scandal engulfing her memoir The Salt Path.
The author will release On Winter Hill with publishing house Penguin this October after 12 months’ delay following reports that cast doubt over the truth of her 2018 bestseller-turned-film.
Allegations of embezzlement as well as exaggeration around financial issues and medical conditions emerged last year around the couple and the book, which has sold more than two million copies.
The publication of On The Winter Hill was postponed as a result of the “considerable distress”, Penguin said.
The description of the upcoming book, which is advertised on Penguin’s website, describes the non-fiction work as an account of Winn’s next walk.
It states: “After a turbulent year, Raynor Winn embarks on the Coast to Coast Walk in winter, unexpectedly alone.
“Despite 45 years of walking together, setbacks in her husband, Moth’s, health have led him to see his decline as inevitable, which Raynor refuses to accept. Feeling trapped, she is drawn north, like a migratory bird, seeking the peace and hope that walking brings her.”
It comes after discrepancies in her story recounted in The Salt Path were revealed in The Observer in July after the book was adapted into a film starring Jason Isaacs and Gillian Anderson.
Winn described in the book how she and her husband, Moth, walked the 630-mile South Coast Path in 2013 after their home was repossessed and Moth was diagnosed with a degenerative brain disease.
The memoir has since sold two million copies and has been translated into 25 languages.
However, it became last year’s biggest literary controversy after the expose cast doubt over their story. The investigation suggested that Moth did not suffer from corticobasal degeneration (CBD) and that she lost her home after stealing £64,000 from her former employers, the Hemmings family.
The claims were addressed by Winn in a lengthy 2300-word statement in which she admitted that she “deeply regrets” certain “mistakes” in her past. However, she called the Observer’s investigation “grotesquely unfair, highly misleading and seeks to systematically pick apart my life”.
She addressed claims about her husband’s condition, which he is said to have suffered with for 18 years despite an average life expectancy of six to eight years. She said it was an “utterly vile, unfair, and false suggestion” to say he did not suffer from CBD.
“Among The Observer’s many accusations, the most heartbreaking is the suggestion that Moth has made up his illness,” she wrote.
Amid the public backlash, her publisher Penguin delayed the publication of On Winter Hill, saying the decision was taken to “support the author”.
In a statement reported by The Bookseller in July, the publisher said: “Given recent events, in particular intrusive conjecture around Moth’s health condition which has caused considerable distress to Raynor Winn and her family, it is our priority to support the author at this time”.
“With this in mind, Penguin Michael Joseph, together with the author, has made the decision to delay the publication of On Winter Hill from this October. We will announce a new publication date in due course.”
The book is now set for publication on October 22 of this year, according to Penguin’s website.
The Salt Path controversy was addressed in a Sky documentary released last month, in which family members interviewed also cast doubt on Moth’s illness, with one describing him as a “fantasist”.
The couple, whose real names are Sally and Tim Walker, still stand by this aspect of the story and have released medical letters to back up the diagnosis.
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