The Paradise Pact

Recovering from a bad break-up, Abbey travels with her two tiddas to Hawai’i, where personal challenges, laughter and new love await. Paradise beckons in this heartwarming and contemporary novel from bestselling author Anita Heiss.

Abbey’s ready for a holiday. Between her growing business, her recently failed relationship and her energetic grandkids, she needs to get away. So when her best friends suggest they take their yearly girls’ trip international and hit Hawai’i, Abbey says yes faster than you can say aloha. 

Before Abbey, Stevie and Caitlin head to paradise, they make a pact: they will do nothing but indulge in mai tais and sunsets – oh, and run a half marathon. It’ll be just what Abbey needs, and she’s determined to put herself first for once.

Then Abbey meets Kaleo, a man who makes her heart race, and things get complicated. This was supposed to be a fun, drama-free holiday, but will the call of holiday romance be too much to pass by? And what happens when reality comes knocking?

Author Biography

Dr Anita Heiss is an internationally published, award-winning author of over 20 books; non-fiction, historical fiction, commercial women’s fiction and children’s novels. She is a proud member of the Wiradyuri Nation of central New South Wales, an Ambassador for the Indigenous Literacy Foundation and the GO Foundation, and Professor of Communications at the University of Queensland. Anita is also the Publisher at Large of Bundyi, an imprint of Simon & Schuster cultivating First Nations talent. As an artist in residence at La Boite Theatre, she adapted her novel Tiddas for the stage. It premiered at the 2022 Brisbane Festival and was produced by Belvoir St for the Sydney Festival in 2024. Her novel, Bila Yarrudhanggalangdhuray, about the Great Flood of Gundagai, won the 2022 NSW Premier’s Indigenous Writers’ Prize and was shortlisted for the 2021 ARA Historical Novel Prize and the 2022 ABIA Awards. Anita’s first children’s picture book is Bidhi Galing (Big Rain), also about the Great Flood of Gundagai. Anita released Dirrayawadha (Rise Up) in about the frontier war in Bathurst in 2024. Her most recent novel is Red Dust Running.