The pursuit of happiness is everyone’s life description. It varies only in how we seek and who enables, supports, or impedes our quest. More than merely satisfying one’s curiosity, another person’s life is useful as a cautionary tale or as a source of inspiration.

“Steady Sarah” (Penguin Random House SEA, 2024, 279 pages) firmly belongs to the latter, written for those who draw life maps but end up in personally uncharted paths. It’s the journey of Sarah Silvestre, a 24-year-old supervisor in a Metro Manila call center who’s dependable, organized–the Girl with a Plan. The current one is to earn that promotion so she can save for the condo she’ll own with her longtime boyfriend, Pete, and help her single mother put her brother Miguel through school. Sarah has her life all mapped out.

Until one day, everything turns upside down. She loses her job, her boyfriend breaks up with her, and she discovers a long-hidden truth about her family. Unmoored and disheartened, Sarah accepts a mountaineer’s invitation to trek to a waterfall in Tanay, Rizal. She discovers she loves nature and wants to see more–much more. Hence, a new plan: to visit seven waterfalls from Luzon to Mindanao all by herself. Family and friends are taken aback by this new, unpredictable Sarah, but adventure is a heretofore unheard call that she is determined to heed.

Sarah starts a blog about her 7 Waterfalls quest and shares her vividly documented and engaging journey. Each waterfall she visits brings a life lesson: patience, persistence, and the value of true friends among them. Along the way are enough surprises—romance included—to keep us as engaged as her blog followers and invested in her local and life journey.

Smooth prose

It’s easy to believe the overnight success of Sarah’s travel blog if the writing were as good as Justine Camacho-Tajonera’s. The prose is smooth, with sentences flowing naturally and the wordsmithing never diverting attention from the story.

Camacho-Tajonera, a published poet and author, has an infectious love for her heroine who, in turn, describes her country’s beauty winningly. Her self discovery-travelogue-romance novel has rightfully earned its slot in Penguin Random House SEA’s roster; the publisher is simultaneously distributing “Steady Sarah” in the Philippines, Australia, and Singapore.

Like her blog’s followers, you’ll want to visit the all the waterfalls Sarah explores: Batlag Falls and Kinabuan Falls in Tanay, Rizal; Kawasan Falls in Alegria, Cebu; Mag-aso Falls in Tagbilaran, Bohol; Cambugahay Falls in Siquijor; Katibawasan Falls in Camiguin; the Seven Falls of South Cotabato; and the bonus, Hagimit Falls in Davao. “Steady Sarah” makes a good cause for nature as teacher, with waterfalls among the most impactful and inspiring lessons.

Camacho-Tajonera has risk-taking as one of her main themes; closure is another. There is not just one but a series of conclusions where all subplots seem to get an unequivocal ending. But this sense of finality doesn’t feel out of place in a novel that asks questions pertinent to seekers of all ages: “Is change good for you? Is it worth leaving the predictable and living out one’s passions? Is it a must to take and accept risks in pursuing happiness?”

Discover why Steady Sarah’s answer is an encouraging, life-affirming “Yes.”

Available in Fully Booked and National Book Store in the Philippines; Amazon for worldwide shipping

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