Published in 2025
416 pages
Claire Zorn is the multi-award-winning author of four books for young adults and the author/illustrator of one picture book. She lives on the south coast of New South Wales with her husband and two sons. Her first young adult novel, The Sky So Heavy, was a 2014 Children’s Book Council of Australia Honour Book for Older Readers, shortlisted in the 2013 Aurealis Awards – Best Young Adult Novel and shortlisted in the 2014 Inky Awards. Her second young adult novel, The Protected, was the winner of four awards: the 2015 Prime Minister’s Literary Award for Young Adult Fiction; the 2015 Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards – Young Adult Fiction Prize; the 2015 Children’s Book Council of Australia Book of the Year for Older Readers; and the 2016 Western Australian Premier’s Book Awards – Young Adult. It was also shortlisted in the 2015 Inky Awards. Her third book for young adults, One Would Think the Deep was awarded the 2017 Children’s Book Council of Australia Book of the Year for Older Readers. When We Are Invisible is her latest novel for young adults, and the sequel to The Sky So Heavy. Better Days is Claire’s first novel for adults.
What is this book about?
Grace had it all, but couldn’t hold it all … A story of love, chaos and the music in-between, perfect for fans of Taylor Jenkins Reid.
Twenty years ago, Grace only wanted to be with Trent – a boy with a guitar and a lot of promises. Her mother, Dorothy, wanted her daughter to fulfil her potential.
In a fit of fury and heartbreak, Grace boards a plane to London where she builds a dazzling career in the music industry, marries Ed who would do anything for her, and has two children (one who might be a sociopath, but the other seems fine).
That glamorous lifestyle is a distant memory as Grace drags her kids and a particularly irritating dachshund back to the Blue Mountains, where Dorothy is waiting with a roast and inevitable questions about why Ed is no longer in the – seemingly perfect – picture. On a McDonald’s pitstop, Grace bumps into a ghost from the past … Trent.
