In celebration of her 50th birthday, Jane Christmas finds herself leading fourteen women along the Camino de Santiago de Compostela, a centuries-old pilgrimage route stretching 800 kilometers (500 miles) from southwestern France across the Pyrenees almost to the northwestern shore of Spain. Before she leaves, Christmas consults with a psychic, who warns of catfights, lost jewelry, encounters with celebrities, a visit from Death, and a fair-haired man.

After less than a week of travel with a group of squabbling middle-aged women, Christmas sets out on her own. That is when her real adventure begins, as she battles loneliness, hunger, and exhaustion. She also encounters charming villages, thickly forested vales, and more compatible pilgrims. And she meets and falls in love with the fair-haired man. By journey’s end, all of the psychic’s predictions have come true, and Christmas has discovered that it is the detours of life that lead us to our heart’s desires.