What do you call a panel of Romance Comedy Writers? Fun and feisty!

Please join us for a very special event with Leanne and authors Clare Fletcher, Karina May and Melanie Saward at your Port Macquarie Library on Saturday 8th March at 2.30pm.

Clare Fletcher

Clare is the author of romantic comedies LOVE MATCH (2023) and FIVE BUSH WEDDINGS (2022), both published by Penguin Random House. Clare also co-hosts That Rom Com Pod with fellow author Karina May. @clarefletcherwriter

LOVE MATCH

In a town like South Star, everyone knows Sarah Childs’ name, face, entire history … and the fact she’s just been dumped by Johnno West.

Sarah would happily keep to herself on their property, Dunromin, for the rest of her days. But now her parents are refusing to put her in charge until she spends a year getting more involved in the local community and, yes, dating. Well. She’ll show them community spirit. She’ll be Miss bloody South Star if that’s what it takes. How hard can it be?

Under small-town surveillance Sarah rekindles neglected friendships and throws herself in the dating deep end (recruiting the Bush Telegraph, Mabel Peters, to matchmake for her). She joins a new women’s rugby team, the Pink Cockatoos, and even the bristly new cop in town, Sergeant Smith, can’t slow Sarah’s race to keep up appearances as the perfect daughter, citizen and girlfriend.

As Sarah moves in with Mabel to help catalogue her vast wardrobe – bringing up memories of Mabel’s beauty pageant past and long-lost friend Rose – vintage fashion might not be all that comes out of the closet.

Wonderfully funny and very Australian, Love Match is a story about learning a new game, figuring out who you are, and maybe even finding real love.

Karina May

Karina is one of Australia’s brightest new voices in women’s commercial fiction. Her debut print novel, Duck a l’Orange for Breakfast (April 2023) was longlisted in the 2024 Indie Book Awards for Best Debut Fiction, with her second, Never Ever Forever (December 2023), hailed “a slickly written and highly entertaining summer read”.

Karina, alongside her friend and author Clare Fletcher, is the founder and co-host of the successful That Rom Com Pod. When Karina’s not writing or interviewing fellow authors for the pod, she can be found researching her next travel adventure or sipping champagne at bookish events – all in the name of research of course.

THAT ISLAND FEELING
A week on Pearl Island is exactly the R&R that perpetual planner Andie Alcott needs. Except instead of sipping pina coladas by the beach, she’s busy throwing her freshly divorced bestie, Taylor, a girls’ trip to remember, dealing with a double-booking fiasco and worrying about her ailing father on the mainland. But it’s cool – she has it covered. After all, everyone would be lost without her, right?

The last thing habitually barefoot local Jack Cooper wants is the headache of managing tourist bookings. But since he’s to blame for the island’s dwindling supply of holidaymakers, he’ll do whatever it takes to keep them happy – in particular, a beautiful visitor named Andie . .

With sun-kissed sands, sapphire waters, oysters and wine, Pearl Island promises the perfect getaway – and maybe even a hot holiday fling. But what happens when the emotional baggage comes in excess, and island life suddenly feels all too real?

Mel Saward

Melanie is a proud Bigambul and Wakka Wakka woman. She is a writer, editor, and academic based in Tulmur (Ipswich), Queensland. She’s the author of two novels: Burn and Love Unleashed and has co-written a new book for young adults with Brooke Blurton called A Good Kind of Trouble.

LOVE UNLEASHED

When Bigambul woman Brynn Wallace leaves Brisbane to pursue her dreams in the Big Apple, she imagines herself landing a fabulous career at a New York City publishing house and acquiring shelves of Louboutin shoes, not working in a doggy daycare with a boss from hell and a wardrobe from her nightmares.

Yet good things are always possible in New York, especially when you believe in them hard enough. And Brynn has a collection of NYC Missions to set her on her way: challenges from her mother, whose death she is still getting over, to help Brynn rejoice in the city that never sleeps.

Brynn soon finds herself making meaningful friendships, engaging in flirty flings, and meeting the gorgeous Sienna, also known as dancer Scarlett Belle. And when she stumbles on a handsome, single dog-dad who just happens to be a literary editor, she decides that if she can convince him she’s more than just a dog-sitter, her dreams will finally come true. But Sienna has other plans, and as Brynn’s NY ride begins to stall, the city shows her just how full of surprises it is.