Kimberley Allsopp

One rule, one week: in Love and Other Puzzles, Rory Byrnes lets the clues of the New York Times crossword decide everything she does, three times a day, on the theory that a life she has run into a rut might fare better in someone else's hands. She is a young journalist with a stalled career and a live-in boyfriend, Lucas, and the experiment turns up a bartender called Harry. HarperCollins Australia issued it in 2022 as Kimberley Allsopp's first book. Allsopp comes from the Sunshine Coast in Queensland and has spent her working life in bookselling and publishing since 2008; the novel is thick with nods to the romantic comedies she discusses on Meet Cute, a podcast about the genre. Her journalism has run in Kidspot, The Sunday Telegraph and WHIMN.