The Near Miss

The people you meet in a moment can change your life forever. LOVE ACTUALLY meets THE SLAP. At the scene of an accident, three ordinary people are thrown together in a heartfelt romp through the dramas of suburban life. Grace, hardworking and tired, wants another baby. But she's weighed down by debt, a manic 4-year-old and a jobless husband determined to make his inventions into reality. Can they both get their way, or will competing dreams tear their marriage apart? Eddy analyses risk for a living, but his insecurities have brought his own life to a halt. He won't let go of the flighty, unfaithful Romy, but will he ever risk believing in himself? Melody is trying to raise her son Skip in the city while holding true to her hippie lifestyle. But will past mistakes and social pressure force her to leave her beliefs behind? 'A stunning concoction of human life, tragedy, joys, love and loss' Maxine, Goodreads

Fran is a writer based in Melbourne, Australia. She worked as a newspaper journalist for twenty years, and recently had a midlife career crisis and retrained as a nurse. She won the Guy Morrison Prize for Literary Journalism in 2013. She is married with two children and she once lived in a commune, like Melody, and at another time she desperately wanted a second child, like Grace. Like Tom, she has pursued a few foolish dreams, and like Eddy, her courage has at times failed her. This is her fourth novel.