Travel Secrets: Book One - Rio de Janeiro (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9781775337324)

Every Destination Holds a Secret.

Work, sleep, repeat. Instead of living the dream, travel writer Rachel Moore is dreaming her life away.

When a new owner takes over Travel Secrets magazine the chance of a lifetime appears. About to be "downsized," Rachel desperately conjures a way to avoid losing her job by betting her boss that she will find a scoop in Rio de Janeiro - or be fired.

Looking for an exclusive story in exotic Rio, the curvy, insecure Rachel must overcome the sabotage of a vicious model with the help of her sexy tour guide Otavio. She must learn how to use the power of a different culture to conquer those insecurities and thus discover the greatest travel secret of all.

Travel Secrets is contemporary women's fiction, celebrating body positivity and transformation through travel.

Working in Travel Secrets magazine, Rachel has been stuck covering the same American tourist spots for three years. She dreams of traveling the world instead and of someday starting her own, unique women's magazine.

When young tech millionaire, Ryan Brooks, buys the failing magazine, he must "downsize" the company in order to save it. About to give Rachel "The Talk," Ryan instead agrees to the bet that Rachel conjured out of desperation: Give her a chance to cover Rio de Janeiro during carnival, and to bring back an exclusive story - or she's fired.

In Rio, Rachel is accompanied by beautiful, mulatta tour guide, Isabel, and surly, sexy tour guide Otavio. The accompanying model and businesswoman, Chantal, along with photographer, Kevin, bully Rachel for her ideas and curvy body throughout her time there. Rachel does her best to get along with Chantal, who is currently dating her boss.

Otavio pursues Rachel from the start, telling her she is beautiful, an observation she finds hard to believe. Both he and Isabel first seem to distract Rachel from her goal, but both end of proving themselves essential to finding the scoop. (This is a genuine scoop, still unknown to the American travel industry). Since Chantal can't model in some of the scoops, the necessity arises for Rachel to star in them herself. She dances in front of the Samba school masters, dances on a carnival float, and even performs a striptease with her new Brazilian girlfriends at a bachelorette party.

Instead of the bullying of her childhood, adolescence, and adulthood, Rachel has stepped into a different kind of world. The admiration the Brazilians hold for both her courageous spirit and her body helps Rachel perceive herself in a different light. She realizes that body image is an issue that is viewed differently around the world.

Rachel's affair with Otavio leads her to his childhood home in a dilapidated shantytown, opening her eyes to the other side of Rio, a side tourists normally don't see. By the end of her trip, Rachel understands the spirit of Rio de Janeiro itself.

Rachel goes back to New York as Raquel, a confident, sexier, happier woman hoping her final scoop is a winning one.

Her resolve to remain a changed woman is tested amongst the sophisticated French women in Travel Secrets: Book Two - Paris and Bordeaux (to be released soon).