On Better Words this week: Karina May

How this Australian author turned her brain surgery experience into a beautiful romantic contemporary novel

How do you write so lovingly about French cuisine when you don’t really cook? Karina May explained all during our chat this week (and made us very hungry).

Karina joins us from her home in Sydney, where she now works as a digital marketer after a career as a magazine journalist.

Her lively love stories span the globe and when she’s not dreaming up her next bookish meet-cute, you’ll find her reading or guzzling espresso martinis in the name of research.

In this episode, we’re discussing her new novel, Duck á l'Orange for Breakfast.

🎧 Listen to the episode at the link below or search ‘Better Words’ in your podcast player 🎧

Things we talked about

• How Karina's own experience undergoing two brain surgeries inspired the novel

• In contrast, how Karina wrote what she didn't know using the help of a French chef to create recipes for the novel

• Why IKEA became such a focal point of Max's story

• Karina's love of travel and how it helped shape the novel

• The journey to publication and why Karina has a second book coming out this year

Other recommendations

Before we chat with our featured author, we always share some other recommendations….

But it’s been a real week for us reading-wise. Michelle's been abandoning books left, right and centre and we couldn't settle on a book club. We're both in a bit of a reading slump!

So, this intro is slightly chaotic with a moving-to-the-UK update from Michelle, plus book and TV recommendations from both.

Caitlin recommends: Happy Place by Emily Henry and Queen Charlotte (TV)

Michelle recommends: Double Booked by Lily Lindon and Blue Lights (TV)

- Caitlin & Michelle

🎧 Search ‘Better Words’ in your favourite podcast player to get new episodes as soon as they’re live. We’ll be back with another episode next Wednesday! 🎧