My Spare Heart

I mean, Mum didn’t drink that much. All of my friend’s mums loved their champagne or whatever. Everyone drank in The Village, too. I'd only been there about a month and there’d already been five wine and food festivals. Mum’s drinking wasn’t a big deal. Right?

Phoebe’s parents have split up and she’s moved to sleepy old Willunga with her Dad and his health-obsessed girlfriend. It’s only a few kilometres from Phoebe’s old friends and the city but feels like another world. Her new school is full of hippies, but some of the kids are cool and the local basketball team is tight, and before long Phoebe is fitting in. But as her mum becomes increasingly unreliable, Phoebe’s grades begin to suffer, her place on the basketball team is under threat and her worries spiral out of control.

Phoebe can’t tell her friends and if she tells her dad he’ll get angry, but pretending everything is fine is breaking her heart. How can she help her mum without tearing her family apart?

A powerful and uplifting story about family breakdowns, facing truths and finding balance.