A small town scammed by one of their own in a Ponzi scheme. That's the scenario for bestselling author Fiona Lowe’s, latest contemporary fiction, The Money Club.

 Hi there. I'm your host, Jenny Wheeler, and on Binge Reading today, Fiona unpicks the moral quagmire of those who trade on the bonds of their closest friendships and families for money.

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Links to things mentioned in the show

Ponzi Scheme:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ponzi_scheme#

ABC  (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) https://www.abc.net.au/

Grey (Gray) Nomads https://www.thegreynomads.com.au/

Fiona Lowe Books:

A Home Like Ours (Women’s fiction on the theme homelessness among older women)

https://www.amazon.com/A-Home-Like-Ours/dp/B08SR7PSPV/

Family Of Strangers; https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/89575506

The books Fiona is reading now

American Dirt by Jeanine Cummins.

https://www.amazon.com/American-Dirt-Novel-Jeanine-Cummins/dp/1250209765

And the controversy over American Dirt

https://www.vulture.com/article/american-dirt-book-controversy-explained.html

The Running Club by Ali Lowe:

https://www.hachette.com.au/ali-lowe/the-running-club-the-gripping-new-novel-full-of-twists-scandals-and-secrets

One Of Those Mothers: Megan Nicol Reed.

https://www.amazon.com/Those-Mothers-Megan-Nicol-Reed-ebook/dp/B0BNGZ2BHJ/

Where to find Fiona Online

Fionalowe.com

Introducing author Fiona Lowe

Fiona Lowe Contemporary women's fiction author

Jenny Wheeler: But now here's Fiona. Hello there, Fiona, and welcome to the show. It's so good to have you with us.

Fiona Lowe: Oh, thank you so much for having me. It's great to be here.

Jenny Wheeler: Fiona, you've got a very impressive back list in the romance area where you started writing You've got prize winning books that have won RITAs. That's the US romance prize and the RUBY, the Australian prize.

But you've turned in more recent years to women's fiction and this one that we're going to be talking about today, The Money Club is actually about the sixth one of these women's fiction ones, if I counted correctly.

Why did you make that change from more straight romance to very much women's fiction?

Fiona Lowe: Oh, I was published with Penguin Random House in America around about the time that they merged. And I had a series, and the first book had done well.

The second book release coincided with the merger and it was absolute chaos. They sacked my editor and they didn't get the books out of the warehouse.

And then they said, ‘oh, we're not publishing those types of books anymore.’

I had lived in the States and I was writing books set in America, but when that all happened, I had an absolute hankering to write a book set in my own back garden in Australia.

A forced change of direction that worked out well

I wanted to move beyond looking at one couple and one relationship, and I wanted to roam over all sorts of things and write books about family and communities.

I changed direction, but that said, the emotion that I write into my books now, I probably couldn't have done without all those years of having written the romance fiction up until that point.

Jenny Wheeler: And are you still with the same publisher, just doing different types of books?

Fiona Lowe: No. I'm with Harper Collins, Australia now, have been for the last seven books.

Jenny Wheeler: Oh, fantastic.