The Competition

Based on the author's experiences in the Toastmasters, The Competition is Katherine Collette’s much-anticipated and hilarious follow-up to The Helpline, the debut Aussie novel that charmed the world.

Frances quite honestly isn’t that excited about the Speechmakers annual national conference and public-speaking competition. What she’s excited about (relatively speaking) is that this year there’s a major prize. Frances has a few small problems and $40,000 would go a long way to sorting them out.

Keith is Frances’s probably-ex-mentor, it’s hard to tell since she’s not talking to him, and he disapproves of the prize money. He thinks Speechmakers should be about self-improvement, not self-enrichment. He wants to win the competition, though. He thinks it might help the situation with his wife Linda.

Alan doesn’t care about the competition at all but Judy, his mother and coach, does. And Rebecca... what is Rebecca doing here? Rebecca belongs to Frances’s past, not her present. And certainly not her (hopefully) less-disastrous future...

Told from a variety of perspectives, The Competition is an affectionate, feel-good comedy inspired by the author’s real-life experiences in Toastmasters. It is perfect for fans of Graeme Simsion, Toni Jordan and Rachel Joyce.