Good Intentions

Normal People meets Industry in this contemporary love story of two brilliant young people whose ambitions and ideals come between them.

Their first kiss was not without technical shortcomings. His glasses bumped against the bridge of her nose and her back pressed uncomfortably against the edge of a filing cabinet. But as she inhaled the scent of his aftershave, Nadia was struck with the kind of certainty that only visits upon twenty-two-year-olds. Somehow she knew that for as long as she lived, there would never be another kiss as perfect or as profound.

In the cramped basement office of their university newspaper, Jake and Nadia learn to see the world, cutting their teeth on a story that exposes a decade of institutional corruption. In the quiet hours, they also find each other.

Then Nadia leaves.

A decade later, she returns to Sydney, a corporate powerhouse who wears her competence like armour. Jake has since forged a reputation as a crusading journalist whose by-line has brought down careers and companies.

Battlelines are drawn when they're each pulled into the orbit of Marjorie Ford, a biotech visionary who becomes Nadia's big break and the centre of Jake's latest investigation. As old wounds flare, both must decide how far they'll go to come out on top.

Clear-eyed and taut, Good Intentions announces a blistering new voice in Australian fiction, asking what it takes to stay true in a world that demands compromise, and what happens when the person who once saw you most clearly becomes the one who threatens to topple everything you've built.

"Relentless reading, I couldn't put it down. Evocatively penned and a clever exploration of the cost of speaking truth to power. This is an arrival Australian fiction has waited too long for." - Antoinette Lattouf, author of Women Who Win and How to Lose Friends and Influence White People

"Utterly unputdownable. Good Intentions weaves together the fascinating world of venture capital with a love story that proves first love never really leaves you. With razor-sharp observations on the complexities of human nature, some corporate espionage and a crusading journalist fighting the good fight, I was completely hooked." - Karina May, author of That Island Feeling

"Come for the love story, stay for the gripping investigative journalism. Good Intentions is a sharp and smart exploration about the lasting impression of first love, ambition, power and morality. It's an achingly beautiful representation of what happens when the person you love is the person you can't be with. Where do you draw the line between the people you love and your dreams?" - Joshua Hortinela, author of Hate You to Love You

"Jessy Wu's Good Intentions bites with razor-sharp clarity. It captures the intensity of the murky moral waters which must be crossed while navigating the tenuous line between justice and conscience. A deftly executed debut which pries apart the tensions of heart and mind, of cross-cultural and intergenerational expectations, and offers a touching examination of what's at risk when we dare to listen to the earnest call of our hearts." - Jenna Lo Bianco, author of Love, Al Dente

"Compelling, smart and sexy: an unflinching glimpse behind the curtain of what it takes to keep the capitalist machine alive - and what it costs to fight it!" - Eleanor Kirk, author of Very Impressive For Your Age

"An emotionally deft debut. Wu transports us through time, unravelling the fickleness of hearts and economies with the same dexterity" - Vivian Pham, author of The Coconut Children

"A love story with epic moral stakes. I tore through it in a single sitting" - Jonathan Seidler, author of All the Beautiful Things You Love

"The perfectly drawn characters of Nadia and Jake immersed me from page one ... I was on tenterhooks throughout. Jessy Wu is a brilliant, unique new voice in fiction." - Katie Hoskins, author of When the Party's Over