The Unlikely Pilgrimage

I just finished reading, "The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry" by Rachel Joyce.  What is it about first novels?  My favourite book sellers explanation is that it's been taking shape in a writers brain for so long before it's written, it's fully formed.  I like that explanation and I think that it is so true.  It was a wonderful book, about a journey that a seemingly ordinary man makes for reasons that become clearer to him and the reader the farther you get in the book.  The ending is perfect, like it was there all along, hidden between the lines.  I cried and laughed through out this book.  It's a book I've been looking for, needing to read for awhile, but I didn't realize it until I read the first chapter.  It reminded me of so many journeys I've made physically and figuratively.