Rachel Hewitt

An urgent tale of survival and subversion

Informative, essential reading on women's mountaineering wrapped within a profoundly personal memoir. There is joy amid the anger and hurt Rachel conveys on her journey of personal recovery through recovering the stories of her newfound outdoors foremothers. I'm sure many women will feel seen in these pages. The peaks of joy, the lessons learned during the lows, and the rallying cry for our right to feel safe outdoors will stay with me

A highly original work… Quietly angry and fiercely feminist, it’s the book I’ve been encouraging everyone to read

Rachel Hewitt's writing is always elegant, fierce, intelligent and truthful. No one writes as well as she does about endurance - and survival

A book of courage, grief, anger, wisdom and fortitude. It demands our attention

An urgent, powerful, inspiring book about women making a space for themselves in the macho world of outdoor pursuits-one that reflects on what we risk and what we gain by turning our faces to the wind

CAL FLYN, author of Islands of Abandonment

Insightful, compelling, and rightfully outraged, In Her Nature brilliantly reclaims the hidden histories and contemporary experiences of women running, hiking, climbing, and taking up space in the world. An essential read, as well as a moving, revealing, and empowering one

This astonishingly brave, deeply important and emboldening book offers hope and encouragement for women to find freedom and solace in the joyous expanse of the natural world

HELEN CARR, author of What is History, Now?

A stunning, raw and powerful book - about grief and putting ourselves back together, about freedom and the fight for it, and about strength and the hunger to test it

TIFFANY WATT-SMITH, author of The Book of Human Emotions

Brave, brilliant and quietly furious, In Her Nature makes a powerful, original case for women claiming space

Wonderfully well researched, and candidly honest, Hewitt openly discusses topics which are often shied away from… this book is thought provoking and compelling

In her Nature reanimates the stories of the past to reveal, brilliantly, the conditions through which women so often have to battle in the present... [it] will make you want to run, and to experience something of the hard-won emotional and physical freedom that Hewitt's prose so movingly evokes

DAISY HAY, author of Dinner With Joseph Johnson

A powerful account of women's strengths and achievements in the mountains

A life-affirming book about the thrill of exploring the great outdoors, asking why so many women are excluded from running, hiking and mountaineering. It confronts the obstacles we face every day, including violence, assault and the general assumption that we don't belong here; but In Her Nature proves we have a right to run free

An urgent, beautifully written and fiercely important book

With intimate attention and in beautiful prose, IN HER NATURE moves deftly between the inner life and the great outdoors. Rachel Hewitt shows that not only do women have a history as runners, climbers and adventurers; we also have a right to the outdoors that is as crucial - and fragile - today as it ever was

A vital feminist memoir of life outdoors, underpinned by the depth of historical knowledge that only a true scholar can bring

An extraordinarily compelling book that left me seeing with fresh eyes. Blending expert historical storytelling with piercing memoir, Rachel Hewitt leads the reader over moors and mountains on a grand tour of grief, solitude, camaraderie, and women's long struggle to claim the freedom of the outdoors

OLIVER BURKEMAN, author of Four Thousand Weeks

A spectacular achievement... It's beautiful, deeply researched and eye-opening

How Women Break Boundaries in the Great Outdoors

'Heartfelt, passionate, infuriating and often devastating, this book will inspire you to fight for your right to tread your own path' CAROLINE CRIADO PEREZ, author of Invisible Women 
 
When Rachel loses five family members in five months, grief magnifies other absences. Running across moors and mountains used to help her feel at home in her body but now feels fraught with danger. 
 
Rachel goes in search of a new family: the foremothers who blazed a trail at the dawn of outdoor sport. She discovers Lizzie Le Blond who scaled the Alps in woollen skirts and photographed fearless women climbing, skating and tobogganing at breakneck speeds. Telling Lizzie's story alongside her own, Rachel runs her way from bereavement to belonging, inspired by the tenacious women, past and present, who insist that breaking boundaries outdoors is, and always has been, in her nature. 
 
‘A book of limitless curiosity and eloquent passion’ The Times

Rachel Hewitt

Praise for In Her Nature

An urgent tale of survival and subversion

Deft, absorbing and informative

Informative, essential reading on women's mountaineering wrapped within a profoundly personal memoir. There is joy amid the anger and hurt Rachel conveys on her journey of personal recovery through recovering ...

An urgent tale of survival and subversion

Deft, absorbing and informative

Informative, essential reading on women's mountaineering wrapped within a profoundly personal memoir. There is joy amid the anger and hurt Rachel conveys on her journey of personal recovery through recovering ...

An urgent tale of survival and subversion

Deft, absorbing and informative

Informative, essential reading on women's mountaineering wrapped within a profoundly personal memoir. There is joy amid the anger and hurt Rachel conveys on her journey of personal recovery through recovering ...

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