OBSERVER: Love Overdue
Some best friends get together over coffee for deep and meaningful chat, but Melbourne-based besties Ali Berg and Michelle Kalus take it one step further.
The two friends write together and have just released their fourth novel, Love Overdue.
Described as a heartwarming rom com about the ink first love puts on your heart, Love Overdue introduces us to teacher Lauren Green.
The hardworking teacher unexpectedly meets up with the man who broke her heart 20 years ago, and he is now a parent at the school where she teaches. Awks, as teenagers would say.
The story that follows includes staffroom shenanigans, playground antics and the demands on modern schools’ staff, all based on Michelle’s real-life experience as a teacher.
Love Overdue is a bookish rom com about first loves, second chances, and discovering how sometimes the best plot twists come along after you think the final line’s been written.
But Michelle and Ali aren’t just bestselling authors – they are passionate about a project called Books on the Rail, where a national team of volunteers leave free books on public transport for commuters to pick up, in an imitative designed to encourage people to put their phones down and pick up a book instead.
Assisted by more than a thousand ‘book ninjas’ Ali and Michelle have distributed 20,000 books, working with dozens of publishers and providing everything from major releases to debut novels.
Not surprisingly their activities have attracted a lot of attention on social media, and Ali and Michelle are determined to spread the joy of reading throughout the country.
Love Overdue is published by Allen and Unwin and available now online and in bookstores.
Julie Houghton