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Better than the Real Thing

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Pub Date Nov 25 2025 | Archive Date Nov 25 2025

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Description

Notting Hill meets Bridget Jones 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, Nessa had vowed never to return. Not for anything. Then necessity bites, Netta reluctantly accepts the offer and 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, and discover that facing up to the past might be the only way to find the real thing. Or maybe something even better.

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

Melbourne...


A Note From the Publisher

Brooke Crawford's first manuscript won the Romance Writers of Australia's Opal Award for unpublished manuscript in 2024 and was a finalist in The Emily. Brooke has a Post-Graduate Diploma in Professional Writing from Deakin University, and studied novel writing under the guidance of Josephine Moon. She is a former PR and marketing professional turned teacher and now runs a successful copywriting business

Brooke Crawford's first manuscript won the Romance Writers of Australia's Opal Award for unpublished manuscript in 2024 and was a finalist in The Emily. Brooke has a Post-Graduate Diploma...


Available Editions

EDITION Mass Market Paperback
ISBN 9781038961075
PRICE A$32.99 (AUD)
PAGES 304

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