Author Raynor Winn’s new book has been delayed because questions about her bestselling work The Salt Path have caused her and her husband “considerable distress”, her publisher has said.
Penguin Michael Joseph said the decision to postpone the publication of her fourth book, On Winter Hill, had been made with Winn.
It comes after an investigation by the Observer claimed the writer had misrepresented some of the events in her 2018 book. Winn has called the report “highly misleading” and refuted many of the newspaper’s claims.
On Winter Hill, about a solo coast-to-coast walk Winn completed without husband Moth, had been scheduled to be published in October.
“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,” Penguin Michael Joseph said in a statement.
“With this in mind, Penguin Michael Joseph, together with the author, have made the decision to delay the publication of On Winter Hill from this October.”
A new release date will be announced in due course, the publisher added.
On Sunday, the Observer reported Winn had misrepresented the events that led to the couple losing their house and setting off on the 630-mile walk that was depicted in The Salt Path.
The paper’s investigation also cast doubt on the nature of her husband’s illness. Winn denied the allegations and said she was taking legal advice.
On Wednesday, she posted a more extensive statement, responding in detail to each of the claims made in the Observer’s article.
The newspaper said it had spoken to medical experts who were “sceptical” that Moth had corticobasal degeneration (CBD), given his lack of acute symptoms and apparent ability to reverse them via walking.
In response, Winn provided documents that appeared to confirm he had been diagnosed with CBD. One letter suggested Moth may have an “atypical form” of the condition, or perhaps “an even more unusual disorder”.
The Observer also said the couple had lost their home after Winn took out a loan to cover money she had been accused of stealing from a previous employer, and not in a bad business deal as Winn described in her book.
In her statement, Winn said the two cases were separate. She stood by her description of how the couple came to lose their home and wrote in detail about an investment in a property portfolio that left the couple liable for large sums of money.
However, in relation to the Observer’s accusation that she had defrauded her previous employer of £64,000, Winn acknowledged making “mistakes” earlier in her career, and said it had been a pressured time.
“Any mistakes I made during the years in that office, I deeply regret, and I am truly sorry,” she said.
But she added the case had been settled between her and her ex-employer on a “non-admissions basis”, and although she was questioned by police, she was not charged.
Winn also said the couple did not have any outstanding debts, and clarified that a house in France that the Observer said they also owned was “an uninhabitable ruin in a bramble patch”, which an estate agent had advised was not worth selling.
The Salt Path has sold more than two million copies since its publication in March 2018, and a film adaptation starring Gillian Anderson and Jason Isaacs was released earlier this year.
Winn has written two sequels, The Wild Silence and Landlines, which also focus on themes of nature, wild camping, homelessness and walking.
