Today, I'm delighted to welcome Karen King to Armchair Travel. Karen lives in Andalucia, on the Costa del Sol in Spain, the setting for her new novel, The Spanish Wedding Disaster. Over to Karen . . .
The Spanish Wedding Disaster is my third romance novel set in Spain, and as with my previous two novels The Year of Starting Over and Never Say Forever, it features places I have personally visited and some of my own experiences. Four and half years ago, I moved, with my husband, Dave, from the UK to Andalucía, Spain, where The Spanish Wedding Disaster is set. We live in a rustic house in the campo with a pool and many fruit trees about an hour’s drive from Estepona, where the beach ceremony in TSWD takes place.
Kate and Steve’s legal wedding service takes place in Gibraltar, a place I have been to many times. Because it is British territory, many British people living in Spain go to Gibraltar to get married. We were witnesses at the wedding of some dear friends there a couple of years ago, so I am familiar with the ceremony. The wedding dance scene in the registry office in the story is taken (with permission) from their wedding. It was such a sweet, poignant moment that I wanted to feature it in the story.
Gibraltar is a fascinating place, steeped in history, and has been British territory since the 1700s. It always seems strange to drive over from mainland Spain then step out into ‘little England’ with its red telephone kiosks and post-boxes. Many expats regularly take a coach trip to Gibraltar to go shopping in the familiar shops of Morrisons, Marks & Spencers, and Boots, although there are, of course, more restrictions on what we can bring through Customs since Brexit
A couple of years ago, along with my daughter and two grandchildren, we stayed overnight on a gorgeous yacht hotel in the Marina by Ocean Village in Gibraltar. It was similar to the one Kate and Steve stay on in the book. Like Kate, Steve, Maddie, Sophie and Josh, we went on a tour of St Michael’s Caves, The Great Siege Tunnels, World War II tunnels, Europa Point, saw the Barbary Apes and went on the famous Skywalk. We also went on a dolphin sightseeing boat trip and were delighted when the dolphins leapt joyfully out of the water in front of us, some of them swimming alongside the boat as it cruised through the water. It was such a wonderful sight.
A few months ago we went on the popular Caminito del Rey walk high above the Guadalhorce Valley. Like Maddie, I am not good with heights and spent most of the walk fearfully clutching to the wire along the cliff walls as I inched along the pathway. The views – if you’re brave enough to look down – are breath-taking and I am chuffed that I managed the complete walk despite my fears.
Andalucía is a beautiful region and the perfect setting for a romance novel. Writing The Spanish Wedding Disaster brought back many lovely memories for me of the places we have been to and the things we have seen. I hope readers enjoy it.
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Adalucia sounds a fabulous place, Karen, and as you say, a wonderful location for a romantic novel. Thank you for writing such a fascinating guest blog. I'm looking forward to reading The Spanish Wedding Disaster and being whisked off to Spain.
The Spanish Wedding Disaster
Some people are romantics. Some aren’t. When Sophie and Maddie are summoned to a mysterious, top-secret meeting by their best friend Kate’s partner, and told that he’s planning to whisk Kate away for a surprise wedding in Gibraltar, it’s immediately clear that bubbly florist Sophie is a total romantic. And that freewheeling, purple-haired Maddie is not. Soon, Maddie finds herself reluctantly organising venues, planners and ceremonies; trying not to think of her own memories of Andalucía, and those she’s lost touch with there. Meanwhile Sophie’s hoping this dreamy gesture might spur on her own boyfriend to similar plans . . . and absolutely not thinking at all about Kate’s gorgeous brother-in-law-to-be. But Kate’s got no idea what’s going on. And as the stress piles up and the group jet off to the sunny south, it seems it’s not just Kate who might get a surprise in Spain – one that could change everything . . .
To purchase The Spanish Wedding Disaster, please right click on the link:
Karen King is a multi-published author of both adult and children’s books. She has had eleven romantic novels published, two psychological thrillers (with another one out in July, and one in February 2023), 120 children’s books, two young adult novels, and several short stories for women’s magazines. Her thrillers, The Perfect Stepmother and The Stranger in my Bed and her romantic novel The Cornish Hotel by the Sea became Amazon bestsellers. Karen is a member of the Romantic Novelists’ Association, the Society of Authors, the Crime Writers’ Association and the Society of Women Writers and Journalists. Karen now lives in Spain where she loves to spend her non-writing time exploring the quaint local towns with her husband, Dave, when she isn’t sunbathing or swimming in the pool, that is.
For more information about Karen and her books, please click on the following link:
https://linktr.ee/KarenKing