I didn’t always live here. Not so long ago I was living in a thriving metropolis with more than one coffee shop on each block and four full bars of reception. I went to Heathmont High School, home to one thousand students, two best friends, a deeply average orchestra, and one cursed statue. Well, allegedly.

Reece still isn’t used to living in the small beachside town of Hamilton: she misses her old school, her old friends and her old life. She can’t go back and she can’t move forward: nothing feels right anymore. Not that she’s trying very hard—she hasn’t even unpacked yet, and the only new friend she’s made is a middle-aged barista.

But when Reece inherits a strange artefact that belonged to her beloved grandmother, she begins to unravel a mystery that might change the way she feels about everything around her, including her charismatic classmate Gideon...

A lively, witty novel about letting go of the past and finding your place in the world, The Museum of Broken Things introduces a dazzling new voice in contemporary fiction.

Lauren Draper is a Melbourne-based writer and marketing professional. She is a graduate of RMIT’s Professional Writing and Editing program and now works in children’s publishing—she loves nothing more than a story infused with magic, hijinks and a touch of nostalgia. The Museum of Broken Things, her debut novel, was acquired after it was shortlisted in the 2020 Text Prize. Her work has also been longlisted in the 2019 Richell Prize and has appeared in various non-fiction publications. She grew up in Western Australia, mostly on land but often in water. She now lives in Melbourne with one struggling coffee machine, a moderately behaved golden retriever and her partner.