'The Walk' by Richard Paul Evans is about finding hope, meaning

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to just walk away from everything?

"I think a lot of people have that fantasy at some point," author Richard Paul Evans says. "But then we look at the bonds we have: the marriage, the kids, the home, the responsibilities, the job. And we know we want those things in our lives."

But what if those bonds were all taken away?

That was the idea that struck Evans while he was out for a walk on his southern Utah ranch. He walks for exercise and for inspiration, he says, and one day the inspiration kicked in. "I thought about the fantasy of walking away, and the bonds that prevent it. The only way to walk away would be if those bonds were gone, but then you would also have to deal with their loss."

That's the premise of Evans' newest novel, "The Walk," which is actually the first of what will be a five-part series.

In the book, Alan Christofferson is a successful Seattle advertising executive who seems to have it all. He owns his own company, has a thriving business, lives in a fabulous house, drives fancy cars and is married to his childhood sweetheart, McKale, whom he adores.

But within a period of five weeks, he loses it all — all his material possessions and all of his emotional connections. Suddenly adrift in a world grown cold and meaningless, Alan considers taking his own life, but instead decides, quite literally, to simply walk away — to walk to the most-far-away place he can find on the map: Key West, Fla.

This first volume covers the first 250 miles of his journey, and equipped with his diary and little more than what he can carry on his back, he walks from Bellevue to Spokane, Wash. Along the way, he meets people who are helpful and not-so. He experiences a depth of pain, both physical and emotional, as he deals with uncertain terrain, but also anger at God, disgust with the business partners who betrayed him, the loss of the most meaningful things in his life, and more. And, as he begins to think about all those things a little differently, he shares insight and philosophy through his diary.

"He starts out walking away. By the end, he will be walking toward something," says Evans. "Even now he's beginning, just beginning, to walk towards hope."

The series will be a journey through the heart and soul of one man, but also across America. Evans doesn't know yet the exact route Christofferson will take, and he's looking forward to those discoveries as well.