Imagine you’re a wedding planner and your clients are adventure enthusiasts who want to get married at the top of a mountain in Italy. You’re out of your depth; you suggest to your boss that the agency could perhaps work with an adventure travel partner on this one. Then when you turn up to the first meeting… he’s there! The larger-than-life Italian mountaineer who turned down your marriage proposal eight years ago and then you never saw him again. Now you have to plan someone else’s wedding together!
This is the situation our main character Sophie-Leigh has to navigate in my next travel romance, An Italian Wedding Adventure, out 9 May with the cover reveal happening today!
I wanted to try writing a series of interconnected standalone romances, which I’ve never managed because I didn’t want to tie myself to one setting and then I hit on this idea: the merger of a destination wedding planning agency and an adventure travel company! It combines the drama and heightened emotions of weddings, then adds some outdoor adventure activities for even more adrenaline! The clashes between the characters also unfolded deliciously when I’d settled on this concept: the wedding planners who appreciate the importance of a pretty place setting and the outdoor adventure guides who are more into knots than bows.
There are a planned four books in the series (two are written, with the third – summer 2026 – up next on my writing schedule) and you’ll meet six of the eight main characters in book one, with the other two love interests also mentioned… (so keep a sharp eye out).
A friend and I had fun creating a mock logo for the adventure travel company:
They are not so keen on ‘Great Heart Adventure Weddings’, but they eventually come round! And the cover? It’s deliciously summery and the lemons are definitely involved in the story (no SUP boarding though, sorry, although there are several mountain summits and a via ferrata!)
Leonie Mack 
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