A Change in the Aire – A Book Review

a change in the aire front cover

Book Review: A Change In The Aire

What is A Change In The Aire: A book detailing Lesley and Geoffs 8 month motorhome trip through Europe with their 3 year old son Jackson.

Where Can I Buy it: Candy Jar Books Online


Fair warning to anyone who reads A Change in the Aire: Your life plans will change drastically. Within 100 pages you’ll have begun plotting as to how you can spend a year (or possibly longer) exploring Europe by motorhome. 

If you don’t yet own a motorhome you’ll be online looking up models and prices within the day, and suddenly you’ll realise that this book has fundamentally altered your perception of what life is and what life could be.

You have been warned.

A Change In The Aire dropped through the letterbox just before lunchtime on a Monday.

Quickly I scanned the back cover, ran my eyes down the chapter list and flicked through the glossy photograph section in the middle of the book. It had certainly already piqued my interest.

On first inspection the book seemed to ooze quality. The cover, well designed, an atmospheric sunset highlighting the silhouette of a family and their motorhome beneath a starry sky. Depicting an idyllic existence of family travel and exploration, enticing me in.

I decided, for some reason, to begin reading the first chapter after the photo section, over halfway through the book!

Just two minutes I thought to myself. I’ll skim read a couple of pages now and start properly this evening. Half an hour and 4 chapters later I realised I was already totally engrossed. Eagerly, I flicked back to the first chapter to start properly, cross that I’d jumped so far ahead.

The pages flew by – one entertaining story after another.

The reaction of friends and family to the family’s ambitious plan. The nerves and excitement in the days and weeks before the journey unfolds.

The worry, anxiety and excitement of those first few days really capture you as a reader as Lesley brings you inside her own mind, exposing her own real fears, and wild anticipation, on a really personal level.

The heady beginning of an unforgettable adventure precedes the stories and experiences of one family, on an experience of a lifetime around Europe.

As each new chapter unfolds, telling a new story, we can’t help but feel that we are right alongside the three of them for the duration. Living those highs, lows, arguments and experiences that’ll stay with them for the rest of their lives. 

The energy, fed by the freedom and ecstasy of seemingly boundless time at the beginning of the adventure is infectious and compelling. Before, slowly, the inevitability of time creates an impending, growing sense of dread at crashing back into reality as the experience winds towards its conclusion. 

Despite the frank insights into the sadness and uncertainty of the journey ending and the calling of reality for the family, there is still genuine optimism portrayed for the future.

This families life is forever changed. 

Thankful for the time they had, and inspired by this adventure to take on life to the very best of their ability.

a change in the aire open

Lesley manages to create a perfect marriage between entertaining storytelling, useful information and tidbits about different destinations, the quirks of their motorhome and funny observations of the wider motorhome community. 

Several times, we’re treated to several paragraphs dedicated purely to public toilets – and it’s wonderful.

In each chapter the scene is set in a wonderfully archaic manner, usually with the day starting after they have overslept and are running late. We then follow the family through an exciting new segment of their trip, highlighting the triumphs, the disasters, the adventures they go on and that #@!#ing SatNav.

Experienced motorhomers will smile and nod in agreement at what is so eloquently and truthfully written, and for many others, it will remain a mystery that we love these vehicles which can cause us so many problems!

We go on this odyssey with them, invited into both the physical journey and the internal emotions and struggles wrestling inside of Lesley’s brain.

It was a weird feeling turning the last page. 

It felt very much like I had been on this journey with Lesley, Geoff and Jackson and left me with an odd sense that something has been stirred inside of me that had been buried away as ‘unachievable’, or a ‘pipe dream’.

It has very much ignited a spark of a new idea about where I might end up in a few years time.

So if you’re after a genuinely unique, entertaining and potentially paradigm shifting read, that will more than likely cause you to question the very way you live your life, then put A Change In The Aire squarely at the top of your reading list.

We’ve since eagerly scoured the internet for news on what the family has been up to since undertaking the adventures detailed within A Change In The Aire and unfortunately we’ve come up empty handed.

Lesley (Or Geoff) if you happen to be reading this then do drop us a message as we’d love to know if there have been any more adventures, big or small, or if there are any more adventures, books or a blog in the works.

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