PODCAST: Melina Marchetta & Tess Woods on Their Writing Journeys, Venice and Writing Different Genres

Voted at #9 in the Better Reading Top 100 of 2025…

When the lives of four very different women become entangled in a boutique Venice hotel, dark secrets unravel and not everyone who checked into the hotel will check out again.Signora Loretta Bianchi, the world famous cook at Venice’s Hotel Il Cuore, is forced to choose between once-in-a-lifetime passion and her devoted husband.Sophie, on assignment in Venice as a food writer, finds a lot more than Signora Bianchi’s secret recipes to love, but what is the charming Rocco hiding?Law graduate Elena is sinking just like the endangered city she’s returned home to, and she’ll stop at nothing to be free from her marriage.Grandmother Gayle’s dream Venetian holiday turns sinister as she finds herself embroiled in a life or death escape.Set against a backdrop of the romance and tragedy of magical Venice, The Venice Hotel explores the powerful bonds that develop between women in times of crisis, and the healing power of female connection.

For readers who love moving, epic romance in the manner of Nicholas Sparks.When football star Nick Harding hobbles into the Black Salt Cafe the morning after the night before, he is served by Anna, a waitress with haunted-looking eyes and no interest in footballers, famous or otherwise. Nick is instantly drawn to this exotic, intelligent girl. But a relationship between them risks shame for her conservative refugee family and backlash for Nick that could ruin his career.Meanwhile, Nick's sister, Lily, is struggling to finish her medical degree. When she meets Toby, it seems that for the first time she is following her heart, not the expectations of others. Yet what starts out as a passionate affair with a man who has just buried his wife slips quickly into dangerous dependency.Scarred by tragedy each in their own way, these warm, hopeful characters must face prejudice and heartbreak to learn just how much beautiful messy love can mean.About the AuthorTess Woods is a physiotherapist who lives in Perth, Australia, with one husband, two children, one dog and one cat who rules over all of them. Love At First Flight, first released as an eBook, has received worldwide critical acclaim, hit the bestseller charts in Australia and was voted Book of the Year in the AusRom Today Reader's Choice Awards 2015. Tess was also in the top ten Best New Author nominations.

Melina Marchetta's stunning debut novel is one girl's story of her final year at school, the year she sets herself free.Josephine Alibrandi is seventeen and in her final year at a wealthy girls' school. This is the year she meets her father, the year she falls in love, the year she searches for Alibrandi and finds the real truth about her family – and the identity she has been searching for.#15 in Australia's Top 100 Favourite Homegrown Reads#33 in Australia’s 50 Favourite Kids’ Books poll, 2014#88 in ABC My Favourite Book