Paris Dreaming

Anita Heiss | 319 pages | ISBN 9781741668933

Libby is on a man-fast: no more romance, no more cheating men, no more heartbreak. After all, she has her three best girlfriends and two cats to keep her company at night and her high-powered job at the National Aboriginal Gallery in Canberra to occupy her day - isn’t that enough?

While her besties are convinced Libby needs to find ‘the One’, she’d rather find herself on the international arts scene. So, with memories of a holiday in Manhattan to inspire her, and a day of music and food at a local multicultural festival, Libby decides to give fate a good kick up the butt with her black designer heels.

She develops a ‘Pitch for Paris’, landing her own exhibition at the Musee du Quai Branly. Suddenly thrown out of her comfort zone and into a city full of culture and cafes, fashion and flirting, love and lust, Libby finds it hard to be on a fast of any kind. Surrounded by thousands of attentive men, nude poets, flirtatious baristas and smooth-tongued lotharios, romance has suddenly become a lot more tempting, and ‘the One’ much more likely than not, even if Libby remains in denial.

And as if life wasn’t challenging enough for the Mademoiselle from Moree, there’s a chauvinist colleague at the Musee who challenges her professional ability and diplomatic skills. Then there’s Libby’s new friend Sorina, a young Roma gypsy, desperate to escape deportation.

Libby must protect her work record and her friend, but can she protect herself from a broken heart?