The Backpacking Housewife: Escape around the world with this feel good novel about second chances!
‘A feelgood read that reminds us it’s never too late to live the life you want’ 4* SUNOne mum is leaving it all behind for the adventure of a lifetime…Lorraine Anderson was meant to be making a Sunday roast, not swanning off to Thailand, backpack in hand! But when she finds her husband and her best friend in bed together there’s only one thing to do – grab her passport and never look back!Now, with each mile travelled Lori sheds the woman she once was and finds the woman she was always meant to be. A woman of passion and spirit who deserves to explore the great unknown…and to indulge in the temptation she encounters along the way!Readers are loving The Backpacking Housewife:‘In reading this lovely book we get to step through the screen of our laptop or tablet, right into paradise…wonderful’ Mrs Wheddon Reviews‘We all dream of just packing up and moving on at some point and this housewife has done just that…fantastic’ Amanda, Goodreads‘An exciting adventure…definitely a top summer holiday read’ Rachel’s Random Reads‘I absolutely loved this book and I highly recommend you one click it as soon as you can’ Linda, Goodreads‘A great beach read – or better yet – a great book to read on the plane ride to your next travels’ Deah Reads
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HarperImpulse
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First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2018
Copyright © Janice Horton 2018
Cover images© Shutterstock.com
Cover design © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2018
Janice Horton asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
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Source ISBN: 9780008302696
Ebook Edition © July 2018 ISBN: 9780008302689
Version: 2018-05-03
To my own real-life hero: Trav
I’ve arrived in Bangkok feeling jettisoned and adrift, exhausted, jetlagged, and asking myself – what the hell am I doing here all on my own? In the long line for customs, I stand with everyone else who was on my flight from London. My eyes are fixed on those around me who look so happy and purposeful, so clearly excited to be in the most popular city in the world, while I’m sweltering in my jeans and long-sleeved, far-too-heavy cotton shirt. I’ve never suffered from a fear of crowds before, but now I do, and I can hardly breathe.
When it’s my turn, my passport is scanned, my fingerprints are taken, and I’m given a passing glance together with a thirty-day entry stamp into Thailand. I follow the masses pouring through luggage collection and into the arrivals hall, where behind a barrier, taxi touts push and shove and yell and uniformed chauffeurs wave and shout and people are holding up cards with stranger’s names on them. I’m overwhelmed.
Once outside the terminal, it feels like I’ve walked into a wall of incredible heat and oppressive humidity and an onslaught of noise and voices at fever pitch. Tuk-tuk and taxi drivers beep their horns and jostle aggressively for position at the kerbside. The racket is deafening and the fumes are nauseating. Chatter fills my head – thousands of voices in so many different languages. Odours in the air assault my nose – the unwashed and the over-perfumed smells are so strong that I can taste them on my tongue. Everyone seems so preoccupied with pushing suitcases and gathering children and moving on quickly to wherever they are going that they knock into me without apology or care, as if I’m invisible.
I look around at beggars in rags on pavements with their arms outstretched to well-dressed tourists. I see beautiful and very young Thai girls with long black silky hair and tight dresses, laughing and hanging onto the arms of far older, overweight Western men.
Why couldn’t I have run away to somewhere quieter, less smelly, much less scary?
‘Lady! Lady! Taxi! Taxi!’
I allow myself to be led to a taxi by an enthusiastic and smiling Thai man and I give him the address of a hotel. I have no idea where it is, or how far, but I’m suddenly too tearful and weary to care. As it is, the smiling taxi driver is a gentleman. He whisks me through the hustle and bustle of the city with the speed and dexterity of a knight in shining armour and delivers me to the safety of my hotel. I drag myself across the sticky vinyl car seat into the hot and humid space that now exists between me and the revolving polished glass doors of the hotel’s lobby.
A uniformed doorman immediately rushes to my assistance. I see him hesitate, looking for luggage before realising there is none, then with a smile he ushers me inside. I look round at the opulence – the polished marble, the shiny surfaces, the huge crystal chandeliers, the sparkly water features – which under any other circumstances would have thrilled and impressed me but right now just add to the surreality of my situation.
