Geri Halliwell-Horner on Why She All the time Visits a Bookstore Whereas Touring

Geri Halliwell-Horner could finest be referred to as the Spice Women’ Ginger Spice, however her true woman energy trait is her fearless curiosity with which she explores the world—and it is a high quality that is useful throughout her international travels. 

“I am Miss Curious,” the singer, creator, actress, and mom of two mentioned to Journey + Leisure on a name final month. “I do not care what it’s. I believe all the pieces’s attention-grabbing.”

She really leaned into her intrepid spirit with Rainbow Girl, a present that launched on YouTube in 2020. Within the collection, she went on a “woman energy journey of discovery” and experimented with all the pieces from beekeeping to tenting. Some issues she, admittedly, favored greater than others.

“I really assume tenting is sort of suffocating once you’ve bought that canvassing over your head,” she mentioned. “I discovered it a bit claustrophobic.”

As a substitute, she prefers a easy different: making camp within the open, like she as soon as did within the Arabian Desert exterior of Dubai. “I sat on the prime of this hill of sand and appeared up on the night time sky, and it was flooded with diamonds,” she mentioned. “The celebrities appeared so near me. It was probably the most enchanting factor.”

Halliwell-Horner by no means shies away from an journey, and she or he’s completely at residence with a low-key getaway, like sipping tea by the ocean, in addition to extra intense undertakings, akin to mountaineering. A few of her favourite journey recollections embody a hike on Cape City’s Desk Mountain, in addition to an ascent up an Austrian peak the place she bumped into an surprising snowstorm.

“It was a brilliant sunny day, so I went up in my shorts, however by the point I bought to the highest, there was a snowstorm!” she mentioned. “There was a bit of hut, and the person there gave us some good scorching meals, however we bought caught within the blizzard.” 

However, as Halliwell-Horner put it, all the difficulty was value it in the long run. “I wrote an excellent tune afterward,” she mentioned.

The British icon is finest identified for her time as a pop star, however she’s a profitable creator as nicely. Her younger grownup fantasy novel, “Rosie Frost & the Falcon Queen,” landed on the New York Instances Finest Sellers listing in 2023. She says she typically makes use of her journeys as a supply of inspiration.

“I’ve been writing for therefore lengthy, so an thought might be for a tune, which is sort of like a espresso espresso shot,” Halliwell-Horner mentioned. “For a guide, it is a feast to make you’re feeling the facility of phrases.”

For instance, she has a fascination with Tresco, an island positioned 28 miles off the Cornish coast in southwest England. The island has a novel subtropical microclimate, which helped spark the thought of Bloodstone Island, a Jurassic Park-like place stuffed with endangered species. In the meantime, a go to to Mount Fuji fueled the plot of the second guide of her collection, “Rosie Frost: Ice on Fireplace,” out there on the market as of April 8.

In the course of the writing course of, concepts popped up throughout all factors of her travels, even mid-flight. “For this guide, I wrote down concepts on the evacuation directions behind the seat pocket and a sick bag as a result of I simply didn’t need to neglect it,” she mentioned. “I’m all the time taking notes and writing issues down. I don’t even understand I’m doing it.”

Nonetheless, this is not Halliwell-Horner’s first go-round with being a profitable creator. Whereas selling her first guide collection, Ugenia Lavender, she toured all throughout the U.S. and all the time made certain to make a cease at her favourite sort of retailer in each metropolis: a bookshop.

“It is nearly like I want an grownup to seize me by the scruff of the neck to tug me away since I begin taking a look at all the opposite books pondering, ‘Oh, that appears attention-grabbing,’” she mentioned. Halliwell-Horner provides that she nearly all the time has a guide on her, and she or he’s normally in the midst of 4 totally different books of assorted genres at any time.

She loves visiting bookstores when she’s residence within the U.Ok., too. Considered one of her favorites is Daunt Books in Marylebone, which she mentioned is a must-visit for all guide lovers. She particularly loves second-hand bookshops as nicely. “Dusty outdated books have a humorous odor about them that I discover fairly comforting,” she mentioned.

To Halliwell-Horner, journey and studying are inherently linked—they’re each transformational in nature. “In the event you’ve traveled the world, you have all the time bought a guide on you,” she mentioned. “Generally, our minds turn out to be like a muddy pond of stagnant, muddied water, however in the event you really clear it out, precisely what’s best for you.”

That sort of change fuels the plot of “Ice on Fireplace,” which is ready throughout a volcanic eruption—a metaphor for private progress and the facility of issues past our management.

“Generally we’re that exploding volcano that is going to erupt, after which generally it is the peaceable, lovely ocean,” she mentioned. “What I like about journey is that it’s a battle between science and nature, man versus Mom Nature. Who’s in cost? After I journey, I get my reply proper in entrance of me. The roar of the ocean, the tumbling huge rocks thundering down the facet of a mountain—that is who’s in cost!”