Melissa Goode in-conversation with Kim Kelly

The end of the affair is just the beginning.

Mardi McKee, prodigal daughter, arrives at her father’s home in Lithgow, Australia, after drifting overseas for eighteen months. Her previous life is a memory. Her mother has died, she is divorced and is estranged from her former lover, Ian. Mardi had left Ian, at dawn before he awoke, with no explanation, only months after ending her marriage.  Ian’s teenage sister, Claudia, has also arrived, escaping her childhood home for Ian’s. Spiky, lovable, lost, Claudia forges an intense friendship with Mardi. But Mardi finds that repairing her relationship with Ian is not so easily done. Mardi is hiding something and Ian is having none of her quest for forgiveness, not until she explains why she vanished without a trace.

Set between country New South Wales, inner city Sydney, and Europe, Ordinary Human Love follows Mardi as she discovers that the greatest love she will ever feel is for the man she left. In this powerful and complex debut, Melissa Goode interrogates what makes a life worthwhile, and has created a vivid, intricate portrait of the relationships that shape and connect us, and the all-consuming nature of desire.

Melissa Goode lives in the Blue Mountains. Her work has appeared in Best Australian Short Stories, Kill Your Darlings and Griffith Review. Ordinary Human Love is her first novel.

Kim Kelly is the author of thirteen long-form fictions. Her novella, The Rat Catcher: A Love Story, was shortlisted for the Viva La Novella and longlisted for the ARA Historical Novel Prize. Her short stories have been shortlisted in The Hope Prize and the Neilma Sidney Short Story Prize (Overland), too. Kim’s latest historical fiction, Ladies’ Rest and Writing Room, won the 2023 Finlay Lloyd 20/40 Prize. Kim is also a book editor, better known in the margin notes there as Kim Swivel.