Aster's Next, Good Thing

Things have changed in Aster’s life, and she’s really not okay. Her dad is the one person who has always been there for her, but now Aster feels like she’s being pushed out like the space that used to be hers is getting smaller and smaller. The good, right things – she did them because she was scared of not being seen, of being left, but they don’t work anymore. Instead of waiting for someone else to do the leaving like her mum did Aster decides she’ll be the one to make that change. Overwhelmed, she makes a decision that could have awful ramifications for two families, not just hers. Facing up to what she’s done is hard but doing the right thing is very different to doing the easy thing. Change can be scary and family life can be tough. But as Aster discovers, the very thing you fear may actually be the gift that brings love and light into your world …

About the Author

Kate Gordon grew up in a very bookish house, with two librarian parents, in a small town by the sea in Tasmania. In 2009 she won a Varuna fellowship and hasn’t stopped writing since. Her first book, Three Things About Daisy Blue, was published by Allen and Unwin in 2010. She has since been published multiple times by everyone from Yellow Brick Books through to Random House Australia. Kate won the 2016 IBBY Ena Noel Award for Writing Clementine, and in 2018 was shortlisted in the Dorothy Hewett Awards for an Unpublished Manuscript. Her YA novel Girl Running, Boy Falling (2018) is a CBCA Notable. In 2021, Aster’s Good, Right Things (published by Riveted Press) won the CBCA Book of the Year for Younger Readers, and in 2023, Xavier in the Meantime was shortlisted in the same category.