Better than the Real Thing

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, Netta 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.

Author Biography

Photo credit: Jax, Gang of Babes Phototography

Brooke Crawford is an emerging author of feel-good contemporary fiction, whose work has been recognised in writing competitions in Australia, New Zealand and the United States. Brooke won the Romance Writers of Australia’s Opal Award in 2024, has post-graduate qualifications in professional writing from Deakin University, and studied novel writing under the guidance of Australian author Josephine Moon. Having previously worked in public relations, creative account management, advertising and education, she now runs a successful copywriting business from her home in Melbourne, where she lives with her partner and their three children. Better than the Real Thing is her first novel.