Last Best Chance

When Rachel, a forty-something single woman, finds herself running out of options on her path to motherhood, she seeks treatment at a fertility clinic in Central Europe. Telling half-truths to her family and the clinic’ s medical team, Rachel questions how far she will go to become a mother, even though she struggles to articulate her desire to become one. Meanwhile, expat Jess loves her new life with Viktor despite their struggle to make ends meet and her confusion about her life’ s purpose. Viktor and his friends live their lives passionately while Jess just seems to be living. With the city preparing for a green-energy expo, Jess sees the opportunity to ignite a career dream, while Rachel fears that it might jeopardise her dream of having a child. Will a chance encounter between the two women give each what she desires?

Brooke Dunnell has worked as a manuscript assessor and mentor, creative writing competition judge, and workshop facilitator. Her short fiction has appeared in journals and anthologies including Best Australian Stories, Meanjin, The Big Issue fiction edition, New Australian Fiction 2021 and New Australian Stories 2, and she was one of Westerly's Mid-Career Fellows in 2023. Her short story collection Female(s and) Dogs was shortlisted for the 2020 Carmel Bird Digital Literary Award and the 2021 Woollahra Digital Literary Award. Her unpublished manuscript The Glass House won the Fogarty Literary Award in 2021 and was published in 2022 by Fremantle Press. Brooke Dunnell has worked as a manuscript assessor and mentor, creative writing competition judge, and workshop facilitator. Her short fiction has appeared in journals and anthologies including Best Australian Stories, Meanjin, The Big Issue fiction edition, New Australian Fiction 2021 and New Australian Stories 2, and she was one of Westerly's Mid-Career Fellows in 2023. Her short story collection Female(s and) Dogs was shortlisted for the 2020 Carmel Bird Digital Literary Award and the 2021 Woollahra Digital Literary Award. Her unpublished manuscript The Glass House won the Fogarty Literary Award in 2021 and was published in 2022 by Fremantle Press.