Today I’m delighted to welcoming Giulia Skye to Portable Magic as part of the blog tour for When Adam Met Evie. My post is presented with thanks to Rachel Gilbey at Rachel’s Random Resources for inviting me on the blog tour and to Guilia Skye for writing such a wonderful guest post!

Blurb:

It’s time to TAKE A HOLIDAY with this STUNNING and SEDUCTIVE debut from a charming new voice in romantic fiction, perfect for fans of Rachel Gibson, Julie James and Susan Elizabeth Phillips.

“Hot, escapist and infused with tension… I loved it.” Julia Wild, award-winning author of Illusions

“A sizzling romance from a sparkling new talent.” Lynne Shelby, author of There She Goes

When former Olympic Swimmer, Michael Adams—now reluctantly Canada’s hottest reality TV star— insults his fake showbiz wife on social media, he escapes the ensuing scandal and jumps on the first flight to Australia. Desperate to experience ordinary life again—if only for a few weeks—he becomes “Adam”, just another tourist traveling through the Outback. But with a reward out for his safe return and his fame’s nasty habit of catching up with him when he least expects, he needs a disguise… and he’s just found it.

Sweet and scruffy British backpacker, Evie Blake, is taking a year out of her busy London life. Tired of lies and liars, she’s looking for adventure to heal her broken heart. So when the hot Canadian she meets at the campground offers to be her travel partner through Western Australia’s wild Kimberley region, she grabs the chance, unaware he’s got the world out looking for him.

He’s just a down-on-his-luck traveler, right?

Guest Post:

Guilia Skye writes about the settings in When Adam Met Evie:

Welcome to the Kimberleys, Australia’s last frontier, as featured in When Adam Met Evie
“Take a holiday from your life”. That’s the tag line for When Adam Met Evie which perfectly sums up why the hero and heroine find themselves in the same place at the same time far from home – but for very different reasons. “Adam” is a Canadian celebrity-sportsman on the run from scandal pretending to be someone he’s not, and Evie is a British backpacker, looking for adventure as she recovers from a failed relationship.
I needed a destination like no other. Somewhere unique. Somewhere vast and remote yet accessible for “ordinary” travellers. And – most importantly – somewhere with no pesky mobile phone reception to throw a spanner into the credibility of the story!
I’ve always been fascinated by extremes of weather – wild winds, torrential rain, lightning strikes – but in particular soaring temperatures. Be it arid and dusty or humid and sultry, I absolutely love the heat so I knew that if I was to immerse myself into a story world for many months, that world had better be hot! And the hottest place I have ever visited is the Kimberley region of northern Western Australia.
This is an unimaginably vast and sparsely populated area the size of France and Germany combined. It has extremes of climate, from massive rainfall in the wet season to severe heat in the dry. It’s a remote land of wild, intensely coloured gorges, rugged ranges, semi-arid savanna-like plains, freshwater pools and waterfalls. It’s stunningly beautiful but also extremely harsh. If you’re not careful, disaster can strike in the blink of an eye.
As carefree backpackers (in a previous life before children), my husband and I travelled through the Kimberley from Broome to Darwin on a two week tour, taking in parts of the famous Gibb River Road – a former cattle route which runs for almost 660km through the heart of the region. We barely scratched the surface! It was early October and we were on one of the last tour buses to leave Broome during the “build up” (the weeks leading up to the wet season). Temperatures were already shooting past 40°C and rain clouds were beginning to gather.
I remember looking out toward the horizon early one morning while camping on a cattle station half the size of England and all I could see for miles upon miles was red earth, squat bushes and the occasional gum tree. It was glorious–so pretty and peaceful–but also quite unnerving to feel so dwarfed by the expanse.
However, despite its isolation, its vastness and its reputation for being “Australia’s last frontier”, the Kimberley region – for certain months of the year at least – has a booming tourist industry. It has become a top adventure travel destination. The dry season, from May until September, is jam-packed. Accommodation and vehicles have to be booked months in advance, campsites are crammed, and “the Gibb” becomes a trail of caravans and trailer-tugging 4WDs.
Then, come October, the temperature rises and tourists dwindle. By November/December, the region returns to relative quiet. No one in their right mind would venture into the “outback”. It’s lethally hot and massive downpours are likely to flood vast areas, bursting river banks and closing major roads until April/May.
When Adam Met Evie starts in late October, at the end of the tourist season. The Kimberleys are almost empty of other tourists but there’s still time to explore. This was key to the story. It’s hot, vast, remote and, with no mobile reception, Adam and Evie are cut off from the rest of the world – for a few weeks at least. The perfect place to take a holiday from their lives, but what awaits when they return to civilisation?
If you’re interested in learning more about the Kimberleys, there are loads more images and videos on the internet and my personal travel photos are on my website, including places that feature in the story, like Windjana Gorge, Derby and the red sandy beach of Roebuck Bay in Broome. And if you’ve ever visited the area, please get in touch as I always love swapping travel tales!

LINKS TO MY BOOKS AND WEBSITE:
To read When Adam Met Evie, please go to – https://books2read.com/WhenAdamMetEvie
Giulia Skye’s website – http://www.giuliaskye.com
Connect with her on Bookbub – https://www.bookbub.com/authors/giulia-skye
Or on Twitter – @GiuliaSkye
If you’re interested in learning more about the Kimberleys, please visit https://www.kimberleyaustralia.com/

Thank you so much!
Giulia x

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When Adam Met Evie is available from Amazon.

You can follow the rest of the blog tour here: