Angry readers demand refunds for The Salt Path after best-selling author is accused of lying about 'true story'
The writer has been accused of omitting key elements of her story in her account of losing her home before embarking on a mammoth trek of the South West Coast Path.
More than two million people have read her popular 2018 memoir but the author is now facing claims the story may not be as 'unflinchingly honest' as initially billed.
Readers are now flooding the Amazon book page with one-star reviews, saying they are returning their books for refunds following a newspaper's investigation.
One said they felt 'completely conned' and 'seriously disappointed'. Another wrote: 'I want a refund of this and the two sequels... I don't want to read them anymore.'
And a third said: 'After reading the investigation in The Observer newspaper and learning the truth I am glad I was able to return it for a refund.'
Following an investigation into their backgrounds, the publication said that The Salt Path's protagonists, Winn and her husband, Moth, previously went by their less flamboyant legal names, Sally and Tim Walker.
And rather than being forced out of their home in rural Wales when an investment in a childhood friend's business went awry, as the book suggested, it is alleged that the property was repossessed after Winn stole tens of thousands of pounds from a former employer and was arrested.
When the couple failed to repay a loan taken out with a relative to repay the stolen money – agreed on terms that the police would not be further involved – they lost their home, it is claimed.
A spokesman for the Winns has told the Mail that the allegations made in the Sunday newspaper were 'highly misleading'.
Their statement added: 'The Salt Path lays bare the physical and spiritual journey Moth and I shared, an experience that transformed us completely and altered the course of our lives. This is the true story of our journey.'
When asked to specify which allegations were misleading or factually inaccurate, the spokesman declined to comment further but said that the couple were taking legal advice.
Questions have also been raised about Moth's debilitating illness, corticobasal degeneration [CBD], a rare neurological condition in the same family as Parkinson's disease, which is central to the book.
Life expectancy after diagnosis is around six to eight years, according to the NHS – however Moth has been living with the condition for 18 years with no apparent visible symptoms.
As part of The Observer's investigation, a number of neurologists specialising in CBD were contacted, with one telling the newspaper that his history with the illness 'does not pass the sniff test'.
Released in 2018, The Salt Path details the Winns' decision to embark on the South West Coast Path when they lose their home after investing a 'substantial sum' into a friend's business which ultimately failed. In the book, Winn writes: 'We lost. Lost the case. Lost the house.'
The memoir then describes their subsequent 630-mile walk to salvation, wild camping en route and living on around £40 per week, and is described as a 'life-affirming true story of coming to terms with grief and the healing power of the natural world'.
It prompted two sequels and the film adaptation, which was released in May, starring' Gillian Anderson and Jason Isaacs, who recently starred in HBO's The White Lotus.
The Winns posed for photographs alongside the actors on the red carpet in London at the film's premiere.
However following interviews with eight people with knowledge of the situation, it is now claimed that the Winns actually lost their 17th century farmhouse in rural North Wales when Winn stole around £64,000 from the late Martin Hemmings, her former boss at his family-run estate agency, where she worked as a bookkeeper in the early 2000s.
Martin has since died but his wife Ros told The Observer: 'Her claims that it was all just a business deal that went wrong really upset me.
'When really she had embezzled the money from my husband. It made me feel sick.'
Mrs Hemmings told The Observer she was glad her husband didn't live long enough to see the publication of the book and release of the film. 'It would have made him so angry,' she said.
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