Beautiful Barcelona was perfect for This Man erotic author Jodi Ellen Malpas

Successful self-publicist of This Man novel Jodi Ellen Malpas reveals her favourite holiday destinations.

“I’m a city girl through and through and would take a city break over a tropical holiday any day. I love the hustle and bustle, people watching and taking in my surroundings.

I’ve always got my journal with me and will constantly be seeing things that inspire me in my writing. I can sit in a street caf for hours and absorb my surroundings, just everyday life really. You can’t beat doing that in a city.

I love London which is such a grand city bursting with history. All my books are based there although it’s not where I live.

Barcelona is one of my favourite cities for a break and I always stay on the Ramblas. It’s right in the centre and you have all the cobbled backstreets and markets. The architecture is amazing, none more so than Gaudi’s cathedral.

I just love exploring the whole place and can’t get enough of it. I’d love to see more of Madrid. I was there last year and stayed just outside the city.

What I did see, including the palace, was lovely and I hope I can get back and see some more. And if I had to put one city on my bucket list, it’s Rome, which I feel I just have to see.

I had a signing over in Sydney at the end of the year and I took the boys with me. I stayed on for an extra week as we hadn’t had a proper relaxing holiday for a while.

Mind you, it wasn’t that relaxing as we were out and about exploring things like the Harbour Bridge and the Opera House.

When you’re in such a fabulous, famous city you feel you can’t just laze about and you have to make the most of it.

Being somewhere so far away and iconic couldn’t be further removed from my childhood holidays which were always to good old Butlins.

I come from a huge family my dad had three sisters who all had kids and we’d set off in a convoy of cars to the coast.

It’d either be Bognor Regis, Minehead or Skegness and I have so many fun memories. We’d stay in the chalets and all spend the days in the indoor swimming pool or at the beach.

There would be the usual mix of weather. It might be a good week but just as likely it’d be windy and raining. But we never struggled for something to do and it really was all about the family.”