The Travel Inspiration Behind In a Desert Daze: A Spicy Childhood Friends to Lovers Romance

With my Small-Town Escapes romance book series, I wanted to hop around to small towns around the world vs. setting the series in one location. The small town of Harlow, California, where In a Desert Daze is set, is similar to Ballygrá, Ireland from The Half of It, in that it’s not a real town.

I like to choose fictional places set in the real world for my romance book settings primarily so I don’t have to get stuck on the actual physical layout of a location. I can determine exactly what shops are located where, what time trains come and go, or the vibe of different neighborhoods. But I like my characters and their struggles to feel relatable, so the larger world of my books is still very much rooted in reality.

I think anyone who has spent some time in Southern California will guess that Harlow is very strongly influenced by the towns out in the Mojave Desert—Joshua Tree and Twentynine Palms, to be exact. I don’t actually think I went out there until my then-fiance/now-husband/crush-for-life and I were trying to figure out where to get married. We knew we liked the desert out in Nevada, so we thought we would check out some Joshua Tree spots. I was instantly taken with the area, and over the years, I’ve been there many times (including, fun fact: 1. a solo writing retreat to write some of The Half of It and 2. my wedding!).

I was in Joshua Tree Saloon one time when they had karaoke—hence, the popular karaoke night at Sal’s Saloon where Max and Daisy spent many Mondays drinking lemonades and singing their faves. There’s a gem shop in JT that I always like to visit when I’m there, and if felt like the right career path for Daisy’s best friend, Gwen, and a great spot in a small-town romance book for the Female Main Character to reconvene with her bestie and get some serious girl talk. There are also many boutique hotels with boho desert-y vibes that helped me dream up The Mirage. I used these places and their overall vibes to help me create the beloved locales of Harlow.

This region didn’t just influence various places in In a Desert Daze—some of the issues that the desert experiences helped shape Harlow, too. For example, the realities of Mother Nature led me to include a spontaneous rainstorm with dire consequences, which is a real-world problem desert dwellers deal with. I was also influenced by the excessive number of Airbnbs in a small place like Joshua Tree. In 2022, The New York Times reported on the surge of short-term rentals in Joshua Tree, and this seemed like some perfect extra conflict for Daisy to be handling as a boutique hotel owner in a small-town romance on KU.

But more than anything, it is the landscape of this region that inspired so much of this book. It is such an incredibly special place, one that has staked claim to a portion of my heart forever. Naturally, as a destination romance author, it was only a matter of time before I chose the desert—and this desert region in particular—as a setting for one of my books. Below are some of my favorite pictures from visits over the years, and you can see why it is the perfect place for a romance novel.

In a Desert Daze is out now on KU, ebook & paperback! This spicy childhood-friends-to-lovers romance set in a small desert town will sweep you away to Harlow, tug at your heartstrings, give you emotional depth with some delicious spice, and an HEA. Read now on KU!