The Travel Mate by Mark David Green

The Blurb

Twenty-six year old Maddie has it all. A fiancé with a well-paid job, a comfortable home and several exotic holidays a year. But when Rupert drops a bombshell six weeks before the big day, Maddie realises that her lifestyle security comes with a heavy price tag. Taunted by Rupert on a Thailand holiday that she wouldn’t last a week living on a minuscule budget, Maddie rises to the challenge. On a hungover whim, she leaves him at Bangkok Airport, swapping her suitcase full of designer clothes for a pair of boots, a backpack and a four-week travel itinerary. But Maddie hasn’t anticipated the rigours of life on the road, or the romantic alternatives on offer. She soon finds herself contending with the attentions of a charming and attractive humanitarian, and a crass, annoying Australian. As if these distractions aren’t enough of a complication, there’s the small matter of Rupert and a ruthless debt collector pursuing her around Cambodia, each intent on reclaiming something of enormous value … This book is the second in a series of four: Book # 1 – The Travel Auction Book # 2 – The Travel Mate Book # 3 – The Travel Truth Book # 4 – The Travel Angel

My Review

Following on from Mark Green's 'The Travel Auction,' we follow the fortunes of two of the other characters in Travel Auction, Barry and Maddie, or affectionately known as Bozzer and Madge. The storyline picks up from where Travel Auction, left off so it is best to read this series in sequence, but then takes you back to how they got together, starting with Maddie unhappy with her controlling, philandering, fiancé Rupert at the airport in Thailand for a return trip to the UK after a five-star luxury holiday, escaping to a life as a 'traveller' on a shoestring budget. Bozzer, is a seemingly rough-cut Australian photographer who has the gift of words when he puts his mind to it, and is travelling, through Cambodia, before flying out to Peru. This book is an adventure with a heartrending story to it, and it is also a travel book. It is quite clear that the graphic descriptions written in the book were written by someone who has done extensive travelling himself. In all honesty, I have not encountered anything quite like this. It is a literary feast of entertainment, humour, pathos, and a font of knowledge crafted in a manner that takes the reader to these exotic far-flung regions around the world. Bring on book 3, I can't wait.