Love, Friendship and Sport: Read an Extract from Love Match by Clare Fletcher

Love, Friendship and Sport: Read an Extract from Love Match by Clare Fletcher

The humid January air was thick with tension. The score was locked at five games apiece in the South Star Tennis Club’s B-grade mixed doubles. Sarah Childs bent her coltish frame and bounced a tennis ball, preparing to serve. A hush fell over those watching.

A hush shattered almost immediately by a guttural, shuddering moan from the bauhinia tree behind Court 3, where a scene of acrobatic and highly vocal courtship had been taking place between two possums since sundown.

‘Jeez, they’re really going at it,’ drawled club secretary Doris from her vantage point in the umpire’s chair.

Sarah looked up in exasperation, concentration broken.

‘Well, they are! Haven’t heard such gutsy lovemaking since those free-love backpackers cleared out of the caravan park. Sorry, Father.’

‘No worries, Doris. Try again, Sarah,’ jollied her mixed doubles partner, the portly local priest.

Sarah forced a smile for Father Simon. Verbal encouragement was all he contributed to their partnership, but Sarah knew, even with the priest’s lousy backhand, flimsy serve and dicky knee, they could win this thing. And she could use a win. Particularly against that smug moll Laura Murphy and her wet noodle of a boyfriend..

Continue reading the extract here…

Buy a copy of Love Match here.

Reviews

Q&A: Clare Fletcher, Author of Love Match

Review | Author Related

7 September 2023

Q&A: Clare Fletcher, Author of Love Match

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    29 August 2023

    A Hilarious and Heartfelt Country Rom-Com: Read Our Review of Love Match by Clare Fletcher

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        Publisher details

        Love Match
        Author
        Clare Fletcher
        Publisher
        Penguin
        Genre
        Fiction
        Released
        29 August, 2023
        ISBN
        9781761046803

        Synopsis

        A new romantic comedy from the author of Five Bush Weddings

        In a town like South Star, everyone knows Sarah Childs’ name, face, entire history… and the fact she’s just been dumped by Johnno West.

        Sarah would happily keep to herself on their property, Dunromin, for the rest of her days. But now her parents are refusing to put her in charge until she spends a year getting more involved in the local community and, yes, dating. Well. She’ll show them community spirit. She’ll be Miss bloody South Star if that’s what it takes. How hard can it be?

        Under small-town surveillance, Sarah rekindles neglected friendships and throws herself in the dating deep end (recruiting the Bush Telegraph, Mabel Peters, to matchmake for her). She joins a new women’s rugby team, the Pink Cockatoos, and even the bristly new cop in town, Sergeant Smith, can't slow Sarah's race to keep up appearances as the perfect daughter, citizen and girlfriend.

        As Sarah moves in with Mabel to help catalogue her vast wardrobe – bringing up memories of Mabel’s beauty pageant past and long-lost friend Rose – vintage fashion might not be all that comes out of the closet.

        Wonderfully funny and very Australian, Love Match is a story about learning a new game, figuring out who you are, and maybe even finding real love.

        Clare Fletcher
        About the author

        Clare Fletcher

        Clare Fletcher was born and raised in St George, in regional Queensland, and studied journalism and business at QUT in Brisbane. After graduating she moved to Sydney for an internship at the Walkley Foundation for Journalism, and has been there ever since, with the exception of a couple of years spent freelancing and falling in love in New York. Clare currently manages communications for the Walkley Foundation and is working on her second novel. In 2019 she completed the Year of the Novel Course at Writing NSW with Emily Maguire. In 2021, her short story Death’s Waiting Room won the Body In The Library category at the Scarlet Stiletto Awards. Clare lives in Sydney with her husband and daughter.

        Books by Clare Fletcher

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