'Following the neighs and lows of a pilgrimage with a difference, Long Rider to Rome charts the 108-day 1,400-mile horseback trek from Kent to St. Peter's Square by author Mefo Phillips. . . A determined and captivating story that shows you can take a white horse-almost--anywhere.'---Saga; 'Mefo Phillips writes conversationally and well, and takes the reader along at a brisk, rising trot. It's not a quest, but a kind of travel journal refreshed by a self-deprecating, gin-dry wit: travellers' tales told over a good dinner. It is more about the escapades and the obstacles than the inward pilgrimage, though the memories of her clearly remarkable mother are tender as well as funny.'-Church Times; 'This is a hard book to put down: I read it at a sitting on a long flight. It rattles along, a page turner full of all the best ingredients of a cracking travel book. From day one we are informed and entertained by stories relating to this great pilgrimage route, the lifeline of Christianity through the Dark and Middle Ages. We share the inevitable dramas of all long distance rides as the pilgrimage, quite properly being done on a shoestring, lurches from one potential disaster to another. We meet a plethora of mostly kind characters, who almost always will react hospitably to a lone traveller on a horse; while at the same time there is always the imminent likelihood of catastrophe that accompanies equine travel, whether from inconsiderate speeding traffic hurtling past and often unable to resist the temptation to blow a terrifying blast on the horn; the constant predicament of wondering where you and your horse are, as maps and rare signs let you down; and the nagging worry about where you are both going to spend the night.' --Robin Hanbury-Tenison