Better than the Real Thing

Notting Hill meets Bridget Jones's Baby in this whip-smart, funny, emotionally charged contemporary fiction about messy pasts, second chances, and future families from a sparkling new voice.

Melbourne teacher Netta Phillips is staring down the barrel of her fortieth birthday with months' worth of negative pregnancy tests, her relationship in the bin, and a mortgage she can't afford. Things aren't going to plan.

When she finds the childhood diary of notoriously private celebrity musician Morrison 'Mo' Maplestone, things get even messier. Mo's desperate to keep the diary's dark contents hidden both from the tabloids and his beloved brother, and he's willing to pay Netta handsomely to personally return it to him in London.

The money he offers means Netta could keep her apartment and try assisted conception treatments; after all, the clock's ticking. But after what happened in the UK twenty years ago, Netta had vowed never to return. Not for anything. Then necessity bites, and Netta reluctantly accepts the offer. Life quickly becomes complicated. There's paparazzi to contend with, a fake date that feels all-too-real, and a Christmas Day confession that changes everything.

Amongst the chaos, Netta and Mo forge a rare connection, discovering that facing up to the past might be the only way to find the real thing. Or maybe something even better.