I received a free copy of this book in exchange for a fair and honest review. All opinions are my own.
Author Candace MacPhie returns to her Back in a Year series to find herself as she travels the world in the book “Hello, I Am Here.”
The Synopsis
I have an around-the-world airline ticket and plans to conquer the Middle East. So why am I hanging around Prague, waiting for a guy who told me to my face that he doesn’t love me? Because I can’t escape kryptonite, that’s why. The two of us travel through the Czech Republic and Germany, eating way too many peanut butter sandwiches and dancing around our feelings—until we don’t.
Once I do get my butt on a plane and reunite with my Australian friends, each step through the blistering heat in the Middle East spins up a slew of new challenges. My trials traveling around Europe have nothing on this place.
We haggle and dodge bedbugs and camel spit from Amman to Cairo. The girls and I take turns in the front seat of the taxi. Bus drivers rearrange passengers so we sit apart from locals. And an unexpected hairy nemesis barges in on my long-awaited felucca trip down the Nile.
But maybe, just maybe, out here in the sweaty, dusty chaos, I’ll find what I’ve been missing. And it’s not a peanut butter sandwich. It’s me.
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Grab your backpack and get ready for an adventure in the ’90s when the Internet was scarce but laughs weren’t. Hello, I Am Here is book three in the five-part Back in a Year series, a true story of a young woman traveling around the world. Each book can be read independently, but it’s more fun to take the full trip.
Content Warning:
Profanity, consensual sexual content, sexual assault, sexual harassment, parental grief, alcohol, religious situations, smoking, and drug use.
The Review
As with the other entries in this series, I loved this book. The author writes with such passion and zeal for life, and moves beyond the typical travelogue format into much more personal territory. The blend of romantic adventures, new experiences, and new cultures being experienced, and the transformative nature long-term travel can have on a person was so perfectly illustrated in the author’s work, and conveys a sense of both adventure and bravery for both the author and the reader who becomes inspired by the author’s stories.
The heart of this story is in the author’s personal exploration. From the return of an old flame that is fiery yet not without its troubles, to a new journey into the Middle East that is so adventurous and nostalgic for those who yearn for those 90s era travel stories, and so much more, this story holds a lot of heart that will resonate with readers powerfully. Beyond the issues with lodgings, meeting new friends, and initiating dialogue despite a significant language barrier, the book delves more deeply into that inner journey, confronting grief and loss head-on and, in the process, the emotional struggle to find oneself and love all at once.
The Verdict
Memorable, heartfelt, and engaging, author Candace MacPhie’s “Hello, I Am Here” is a must-read travel-based nonfiction work that reads like a memoir. The perfect entry in this series and a thoughtful approach to travel nonfiction, the author expertly navigates the emotional inner conflict within herself during a time of great turmoil, writing with great humor, charm, wit, and heart to create a narrative readers will instantly connect with. If you haven’t yet, be sure to grab your copy today!
Rating: 10/10
About the Author
Born in Montreal, Quebec, I spent years backpacking and working around the world. I have a Bachelor of Commerce degree, an MBA, and worked for twenty years on four different continents and now call Calgary, Alberta home.
I got married, had kids, and things got busy. Time was moving by quickly, and my kids were growing up fast. I shifted gears and quit my job to spend time at home. During the COVID lockdown, I had time on my hands, decided to try writing, and started writing the Back in a Year series.
When I’m not at my computer yelling, “Just a few more pages, then I’ll make dinner,” I love hiking in the Rocky Mountains, hot yoga, reading romance novels, and making up new cake recipes. I especially like to laugh and spend time with my husband, the self-proclaimed grumpy motherf*%ker, and my three awesome kids.
Follow me on Instagram: @candacemacphie
Or on TikTok: @candacemacphie
And visit my website for trip photos: www.candacemacphie.com
