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 behind her, her relationship in the bin and a mortgage she can’t afford. Things really aren’t going to plan.
When she unexpectedly 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 from the tabloids and well away from his beloved younger brother, and he’s willing to pay Netta handsomely to personally return it to him in London. The financial reward he offers would would mean Netta could keep her apartment and try assisted conception treatments; after all, the clock’s ticking. Loudly. But she can’t go. After what happened there twenty years ago, she vowed never to return to the UK.
Not for anything.
When necessity bites, Netta reluctantly accepts Mo’s offer and life quickly becomes even more 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.
N E T TA
‘Impressive set of nipples on the big guy, there.’
Netta Phillips looked up from a pile of spelling tests to see Jim, the cleaner, standing at her open classroom door, eyeing off the cardboard Santa she’d stuck to it just that morning. ‘Seriously?’ She leaned over her desk and sighed. Sure enough, Santa was sporting two new additions drawn in thick black marker.
‘Kids, hey?’ said Jim. ‘Coulda been worse though, I guess. At least it’s only his top half that got the treatment.’ He poked his head into the classroom, looking around at the giant paper ornaments hanging from the beams and the tinsel swaying in the air-conditioner’s breeze. ‘Bit early for Christmas decorations anyway, isn’t it?’
Netta grinned. ‘Don’t be such a Grinch, Jim.’ She pointed to the calendar hanging on the wall behind her desk, shiny gold star stickers marking the term-four days that had already passed. ‘It’s less than a month till the big day, you know. The 3N Christmas Countdown is on.’
‘Right you are.’ Jim shot Santa a bemused side-eye. ‘Very festive. Anyway, I’m almost done. It’s time for you to skedaddle so I can lock up.’
Netta dropped her red pen to the desk and gave him two thumbs up. She was more than happy to have an excuse to cut and run—it was already almost five thirty and it’d been a ten-kinds-of-shit Friday, to put it mildly. She’d had a very tense meeting with Zara’s parents about how anxious Zara had seemed in the past few weeks, made even tenser by the fact her dad had brought along his new girlfriend, which, understandably, hadn’t gone down especially well with Zara’s mum. The aggression level had quickly risen from politely passive to that of a MAFS dinner party and the meeting had ended with Netta even more worried about her clearly struggling student. Then, during quiet reading time, a pigeon had flown into the classroom via an open window and defiled the big beanbag in the book corner with a colossal poo, causing total chaos among the kids. Her maths lesson—which she’d spent ages planning and thought would be fun—had royally tanked, and worst of all, poor little Tahli had turned up to school with no lunch again. Netta pulled out her top drawer to run a quick inventory on the stash of just-in-case snacks she kept there for Tahli, making a mental note to buy more crackers and fruit before Monday.
She grabbed her handbag and car keys from the desk and walked to the door feeling, as usual, as though she was leaving before she’d actually finished work. The responsibility she felt to her students and the never-ending nature of her to-do list meant that no matter how hard she worked, or how late she stayed, there was always more she could do. Netta loved her job, but she often felt as though it required two of her. She exhaled the frustration in a lung-emptying rush as she flicked the lights off and tore the newly nippled Santa from the classroom door, taking a moment to inspect the additions.
They were actually pretty good; whoever had drawn them had even thought to include a few rogue hairs around their periphery.
‘You’re not the only one who’s had a rough day, mate,’ she said, scrunching Santa into a ball. ‘I wish a few stray nipple hairs were all I had to worry about.’ He landed in the recycling bin with a swoosh and Netta pulled the classroom door closed behind her.
She made her way through the empty school office and out into the warmth of the early evening, across the basketball court, over the four-square grids and past the play equipment towards her car. As she passed the kitchen garden her class tended once a week, she smiled with pride at the fundraising sign on the fence, the filled gauge showing they’d hit their target. Heading up the student philanthropy club was one of the best parts of Netta’s job. Last year the kids had raised money to buy books for a school in Nepal, and this year they’d raised nearly two thousand dollars for the Starlight Foundation.
When Netta reached the staff carpark it was empty aside from Jim’s ute and her old VW Beetle, its faded cherry red paintwork enthusiastically absorbing the almost-summer heat to turn the cabin into an oven, ready to slow roast her from Elwood to the inner west of Melbourne, where she lived with her partner, Pete. The bug’s ancient engine grumbled reluctantly to life and, in lieu of air con, Netta cranked the window down as she pulled out onto the street. She took the scenic route along the coast road towards St Kilda, past waterfront restaurants and bars heaving with peo-ple unfurling into the weekend, past the pier full of runners and tourists and lovers, past Catani Gardens, where giant palm trees exploded like green fireworks against the clear blue sky. The beach was already packed with leathery old men and lobstered backpack-ers and every kind of person in between, and the sea air hummed with the promise of fun.
A surge of nostalgia swept through Netta as the road swooped past St Kilda West where her old apartment was tucked a few blocks back from the beach: a vintage one-bedder with walls that could tell a hundred years’ worth of stories. She’d been so happy in that place, but when interest rates had gone nuts and her increased mortgage payments had stretched her wage so thin it was practically translucent, Pete had suggested she rent it out and move in with him. It had, in a financial sense at least, been a relief—having to sell the apart-ment would’ve broken her heart. Even now though, two years deep into living with Pete, she still missed it sometimes. But, as she often reminded herself, she’d been alone there. The apartment had been fine for younger, single Netta, but now she was in-a-committed-relationship-and-trying-for-a-baby Netta. She was almost forty and those single-girl days were behind her. And waking up next to Pete every day was lovely.
Forty-five minutes later Netta pulled into her driveway, drenched in perspiration and almost certainly partially cooked. She sprang from the car as it creaked into rest, eager to escape the furnace. Her dress had stuck to her in all the wrong places and she plucked at it, pulling it from the backs of her thighs and fanning it out from her chest. A pool of sweat trapped in her bra escaped and dribbled disgustingly down her stomach. She decided she’d beeline for the shower and then treat herself to one glass of the pinot gris she knew was waiting patiently for her in the fridge. She’d cut right back on drinking since they’d been trying to conceive but some Friday nights demanded a little liquid escape, and this one definitely wasn’t going to take no for an answer.
She gave the old bug a friendly pat on the bonnet and made her way through the garden, past its ornamental pear trees and militantly pruned box hedges, to the front door of the house—a classic fifties weatherboard Pete had renovated to within an inch of its life before they’d met. She discarded her sandals as she stepped into the house to let the cool floorboards soothe her feet. ‘Pete?’ she called. ‘You home?’
She was met with a weighty silence, broken only by the loud tick of the kitchen clock. Past six, and he still wasn’t home. Caught in traffic, probably. Or working late again. He’d seemed stressed this past month or so. He worked hard, Netta knew that, but she’d also sensed a little bit of distance between them lately. It was nothing, she was sure. Probably all in her head. The jaunty procession of deadshits she’d dated before Pete had done a very good job of making her hyper-wary of any change in relationship temperature. One of them—the undisputed king of the deadshits—had carved in her a scar of humiliation so deep she hadn’t been able to fully trust anyone for years until Pete had come along. He was different to the others. Safe. Reliable. Comfortably predictable. They were fine. It was time to stop looking over her shoulder and just relax.
‘Oh my God,’ said Netta out loud, catching sight of herself in the hallway mirror as the front door swung shut behind her. ‘Looking good, Phillips.’ Her hair was a mad mess of sweat and wind-whipped fuzz and her face had progressed well beyond a flush into full beet-root territory in the heat of the car. She looked like she’d fallen asleep in a sauna and been woken by a cattle prod. She needed a shower. Closely followed by that one precious glass of wine.
*****
Drying off after the shower, Netta heard footsteps in the hallway and smiled. Pete was home. She slid into her dressing gown and opened the bathroom cabinet to find the hair brush, but her attention was caught first by an ovulation testing kit. She took it out and turned it over in her hands. It was probably a bit early, but it couldn’t hurt to check. She tore open the packet and held the handle between her teeth as she gathered up the fabric of her dressing gown and sat down on the toilet. She’d become something of a pro at peeing on testing sticks over the last few months—a niche addition to her skill set, admittedly—but her newfound expertise hadn’t helped much. For all the tests that had announced she was ovulating, there had been far too many declaring that, nope, she still wasn’t pregnant, thanks very much.
She washed her hands, brushed her hair and executed the increasingly complex skincare routine her face suddenly seemed to require while she waited for the result. But when the three minutes was up, she was met with an empty circle. Low fertility. No strategically timed sex ahoy.
Netta sighed and shoved the test into the bathroom bin, a familiar wave of impatience rising. That egg couldn’t hide out forever. She’d test again tomorrow, first thing.
Netta found Pete hunched over the computer in his tiny office, his face etched with the stress of the day, his paisley-patterned tie hanging loose around his neck and the first two buttons of his busi-ness-blue shirt open. His face—all strong jaw and pale, piercing eyes—was still the one Netta had fallen for, even if their nine-year age gap was becoming more evident as he neared fifty; his chiselled edges softening, flecks of silver appearing at his temples, his hair thinning at his crown. Netta felt herself relax a little at the sight of him, her tension retreating at the thought of curling up for a movie together and leaving the day behind.
Pete raised his eyes to Netta and leaned back into his ergonomic chair. He flashed her a brief hello smile. ‘Good day?’
Netta leaned against the doorframe. ‘Excremental.’
Pete grimaced distractedly, his fingers hovering over the keyboard like runners itching for the starting gun to go off. ‘You, ah, want to talk about it?’ His eyes flicked to his watch and back to Netta. He couldn’t have looked less keen to talk about it if he was bungee jumping out the window.
‘It’s okay, you look busy.’ Netta swallowed her urge to be wrapped up in his arms while she unloaded every detail of her trainwreck day. ‘I think I just want to drink about it, anyway,’ she said instead. ‘Fancy a couch wine when you’re done?’
Pete cleared his throat and adjusted his glasses. ‘Do you mind if I just …’ He gestured towards the computer. ‘I’ll be at it till late, I think.’
Netta shook her head and forced a smile as she pulled the door closed behind her, trying to ignore how distinctly second best she felt. The siren song of the wine drew her straight to the kitchen but it wasn’t loud enough to drown out the question that had once again hustled its way into her mind: what was going on with Pete? But the day had been tough enough without going down that rabbit hole too. She opened the fridge, pulled out the bottle and sighed. This one, lonely glass of wine she was allowing herself had some serious work to do.
MO
The morning felt offensively bright even before Mo opened his eyes, so he kept them closed, bracing himself for what he’d find when he eventually opened them. The room was arctic, but he was clammy. Sweating out the night before no doubt—although no amount of sweat could save his liver from what he’d evidently done to the poor bastard. He took a slow breath in—one, two, three, four—and let it out—four, three, two, one.
The place smelled like it could do with a window open, the air laced with stale booze, an unfamiliar perfume (which was doing a poor job of masking another curious smell) and sex. His nakedness under the sheet was confirmation of the latter. No surprise there.
The chatter and traffic noise drifting in from outside announced he wasn’t in his own bedroom. London life buzzed by in place of the blissful silence he normally woke to and springs dug into his back, letting him know in no uncertain terms that it wasn’t his state-of-the-art mattress he was dying on.
He rolled away from the light and pressed his face into the pillow. His belly felt hollowed out—cavernous, like he hadn’t eaten in a week—but the foul taste of garlic and cheese carpeting his mouth meant he must’ve had something; breath this horrific didn’t make itself. He gingerly inspected his aching teeth with his tongue. He’d been grinding them in his sleep again. Unresolved stress, the dentist had told him. No shit.
Mo could hear even breathing to his left. Whoever it was wasn’t snoring, but close to it. Keeping one eye defiantly shut, he gingerly opened the other, squinting against the watery light flooding the room. On the bedside table was a bright pink, diamante-encrusted AirPod case and a tub of something fruity from The Body Shop. Neither bode well for the vintage of the woman behind him. He was forty-one, but the ages of the women he slept with hadn’t changed much in the last fifteen years. They probably wouldn’t even think about it if he wasn’t, you know, who he was.
A tiny dress lay on the floor next to the bed, crumpled, no doubt, in his haste to remove it. He prised his leaden head from the pillow and breathed a sigh of relief when he saw his own clothes piled up against the wall near the door. This was a signature move of his, honed through repetition. It made getting out unseen and unheard much easier. He rolled out of bed and gently replaced the covers.
He stole a brief glance at the woman. Rachel, possibly. Beautiful. Honey blonde hair and strong features. Legs longer than should be legal. And too young for him. Of course. Maybe mid-twenties. Drenched in fake tan, which answered the question about the curi-ous smell. Snippets of the evening started emerging through the fog and he recalled her thick Geordie accent and throaty laugh. She’d been fun, but he had to get out of there before she woke up. A clean exit, just in case she had any ideas about calling the paparazzi. He was supposed to be resurrecting his career, forging a new image, not confirming he was still the same model-shagging dirtbag he’d always been. Old habits. Old dog.
Mo tiptoed across the room, scooped up his clothes and went out into the silent lounge room. He pulled on his underwear and crouched, rummaging in the pockets of his jeans to find his phone. He shot a rapid-fire text message to his driver, then finished dressing: jeans, shirt, old bomber jacket.
He took one last look around the apartment, scanning for anything he might’ve left behind. The place was a mess. He padded around collecting discarded glasses and sat them next to the sink, righted the couch cushions, which had ended up strewn all over the place, and restacked the magazines they’d swept off the coffee table.
His guilt at sneaking away somewhat appeased, he pulled on his shoes and slipped out of the apartment to wait for his ride.
The door to the building had barely closed behind him when he heard someone shouting his name.
‘Mo! Over this way, mate!’
Mo looked up to see a lone photographer hiding behind a long lens on the other side of the road. He turned and tugged urgently on the door, but it’d locked behind him. Of course it fucking had. He found his sunglasses in his pocket and shoved them on as he turned back to the busy high street, already teeming with people who looked far less close to death-by-hangover than he was. Cafés full of morning people. Shops preparing to open. A busload of commuters disembarking at a stop halfway up the block. There was nowhere to go and it seemed even if there were, it was too late to hide anyway. He’d already been spotted by a huddle of women out the front of the closest café. One of them was pointing at him and another had her phone raised in his direction. Filming, no doubt. More people stopped, appraising him like he was some kind of inanimate object in a museum, not an actual sentient being. More phones were coming out of pockets. He attempted a smile but his face betrayed him, and that dipshit on the other side of the street was still snapping away like his life depended on it.
Where the fuck was his driver? She’d said five minutes. It had to have been that long already. Mo looked left and right, up and down the street, searching for the car. An older woman in a lavender puffer coat asked for a selfie with him and took it before he’d even had a chance to consent. Others snapped photos on their phones from a distance. This was the side of it he hated. The constant exposure. The endless intrusion.
Finally, the shiny black bonnet of the car came into view and Mo broke into a purposeful stride to intercept it. The photographer darted across the street, playing chicken with a bus so as not to lose his target, his scrawny legs annoyingly nimble in flappy cargo pants. Mo felt him scuffle up, crab-walking alongside him, snap-ping away at his profile.
Mo clenched his teeth. ‘That’s enough, mate.’
‘C’mon, Mo,’ wheedled the photographer. ‘Gimme a good shot. All publicity is good publicity, right?’
This was what they did best. They goaded. They provoked. They poked the bear until it roared for the camera. Mo’s inhale flared his nostrils, stoking the flames building in his chest. He swal-lowed hard against the urge to snuff the little prick out. He couldn’t let this clown get to him. A mistake here was exactly the sort of thing that could derail his career. Again.
The car was getting closer and Mo waved frantically at the driver to pull over. The front wheel mounted the kerb and he lengthened his stride to reach the door handle, the photographer still so close Mo could smell the instant coffee on his breath. Mo pulled the door open and as he barrelled into the passenger seat, the photographer slid behind the door, preventing him from slamming it closed. The lens was right in Mo’s face now, the shutter clicking frenetically, capturing every iteration of his rising anger.
‘Back off, mate.’ Mo’s voice was low and measured.
‘Ease up, Mo. You old has-beens can’t afford to be picky. You have to take what you can get these days, no?’
Mo grabbed the lens and jerked it down, pressing the camera into the photographer’s chest, pinning his back to the car door, making it swing open behind him. ‘I said, back off,’ he snarled, his hand still wrapped firmly around the lens.
‘C’mon now, Mo,’ weaselled the photographer, a maddening grin spreading across his face. ‘You know you fucking love it.’
Mo let go of the camera and as he did, the photographer flung himself backward into the gutter in a mess of arms and legs—an Oscar-worthy performance lapped up by the onlooking crowd, their phones held aloft to capture the whole exchange.
‘Thanks, man,’ said the photographer as he scrabbled to sit, that infuriating smile smeared across his face again. ‘You just paid for my next holiday.’
Better than the Real Thing by Brooke Crawford
On Sale: 25/11/2025