Wayward Women by Rhonda Carrier & Tracey Davies BLOG TOUR #WaywardWomen @bedsqpublishers @RandomTTours #BookExtract

 

Eat Pray Love meets Want.

Wayward Women is a unique, searingly honest, devastatingly raw two-person memoir about the friendship, travels and sex lives of two fiftysomething women finding their way again after divorce.

It’s an entertaining, emotional and geographical journey that bounces around the world from Florida to India, Lapland to Hong Kong, as the authors -both leading travel writers - relay their experiences as midlife women – love, loss, parenthood, divorce, menopause – along with the tales of the inspirational women they meet along the way, and the growth of their friendship.

Wayward Women by Rhonda Carrier and Tracey Davies was published on 29 January 2026 by Bedford Square Publisher. As part of this #RandomThingsTours blog tour I am delighted to share an extract from the book with you today. 

Extract from Wayward Women by Rhonda Carrier & Tracey Davies 

MERMAIDS

Tracey

‘I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.

I do not think that they will sing to me.’

– T.S. Eliot, The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock

A child of the Splash! era, I longed to be Daryl Hannah: half- hottie, half-mackerel – and boning Tom Hanks. Mermaids are often depicted in film and literature as sexy sirens or bloodthirsty nymphs, voluptuous sea creatures with perky tits and pretty, scaly tails surfacing from the sea to manipulate men and help them shuffle off their mortal coil. And as someone going through an acrimonious divorce and often feeling like I’m treading water or sinking in mud, I feel the mermaids are doing God’s work.

But mermaids also represent the ultimate in sisterhood: femininity, rebellion and transformation. It’s these aspects of the mermaid lifestyle that I’m most drawn to, especially as I reach midlife. So when my friend Rhonda and I get the opportunity to train with the real mermaids of Florida, we totally flip out.

Apart from the tan, the two best things about being travel writers are the adventures we have and the people we meet. At Tampa International Airport, Rhonda fires up Bumble within minutes of landing to see if she has a message from Daniel, a man from a nearby town called Holiday, a name he described to her as ‘wildly inappropriate for the presence of the humans who reside within’. So far, so Florida.

I’m contractually obligated to state that Rhonda Carrier is not an international cougar and does not fuck her way around the world. Although a self-confessed horn dog, she uses Bumble’s travel mode to chat with and sometimes meet interesting people around the world. And that’s how she found Young Daniel.

I say young, but there have been younger. That’s another story, though. Young Daniel is thirty-nine, Rhonda is fifty- four. I know she really wants to meet him but I’m not sure how she’s going to swing it given our packed schedule.

Driving along the highway in our rented Ford Mustang – roof down and filthy ear-blistering German techno on the stereo – I glance over at her, the warm Floridian wind whipping her hair vertical, and I feel my heavy heart lighten.

Okay, indulge me a little. I’ve had a rough ride these past few years. A delicious life cocktail of marital woe, surprise debt, grief and perimenopause, all shaken up with the unrelenting pressure and responsibility that comes with being a parent. It’s no wonder depression has been as regular a visitor as a randy milkman. And each time it’s made me feel like I’ve fallen down a well. This trip has very much come at the right time. There’s only so much heavy lifting my dear Prozac can do.

After more than two decades of marriage and parenthood, and now going through a divorce, I crave the freedom of travel more than I crave two Greggs sausage rolls and a Diet Coke after a heavy night. I crave it more than love, I crave it more than sex. I crave freedom even more than acceptance. And now, as I speed towards the wet wilds of Florida sat next to Rhonda in my favourite car, freedom – albeit just for a week – finally feels within reach.

Rhonda has written for The Guardian, The Telegraph, Metro, iPaper, Red magazine,
Condé Nast Traveller, National Geographic Traveller, The South China Morning Post, and many others. She's appeared on radio shows and travel panels and as a speaker at travel events, and she writes and translates award- winning fiction. She has also written and edited a handful of major travel books.

Tracey is a veteran travel writer whose byline regularly appears in Metro, The Daily and Sunday Telegraph, The Times/Sunday Times, The Guardian, iPaper, Country Life, Red Online, Good Housekeeping, Platinum, Breathe, Teen Breathe, and Travel Weekly. She was co-host of the Carry On travel podcast and is a regular panellist on radio and travel shows. She is also a stand-up comedian