Minnie Darke Books In Order

Publication Order of Standalone Novels

Minnie Darke
Minnie Darke shares a body with a versatile wordsmith named Danielle Wood, who has written short story collections and novels for adults, nonfiction, and novels for children (along with Heather Rose).

Minnie lives in Australia with her husband and their kids, and there is always music. She is a daylight librarian and a Gemini.

Danielle’s books have been published in the Netherlands, Germany, the USA, Russia, and Italy. She’s won the 2002 Australian/Vogel Literary Prize, two Sydney Morning Herald Young Novelist of the Year Awards, and the Dobbie Prize for Women’s Fiction.

Minnie loves reading mystical and magical reads about the future and life and cannot resist any fairy tales with some kind of spin.

Her work routine sees her at her desk at six am with a pot of tea, and a decent amount of words written by two in the afternoon. This leaves her time in the day to do the ‘washing up’ (publicity, social media, and administration) and still leave her evening free to have a life.

Minnie’s debut novel, called “Star-Crossed”, was released in the year 2019, which won the Margaret Scott People’s Choice Award and has been published in more than thirty countries. Her work is from the genre of romance.

She got the idea for this novel, during her time as a journalist for a small newspaper. Since the staff were few, and it was handy for everybody to be able to make changes to the paper right up to its deadline, she had a login that gave her full access to the entire publication. She had been working late one night when she thought about how, if she wanted to, she could fiddle around with the astrology column. She figured she could make the entries spookily relevant to the lives of her friends, or possibly have a hand, invisibly in their choices. It was a seductive idea, but she never did anything with it.

Minnie also thought it would make for a good basis for a novel. It was decades before she actually sat down and wrote it down, though. In that time, she learned that even the people that have no interest in astrology, usually know their sun sign, as well as the basic stereotypes that go with it.

Once she really started writing the novel, she had to do quite a lot of deliberate reading on the rising signs, moon signs, sun signs, and the houses of the zodiac, and other things.

While writing the novel, she just enjoyed letting herself off of the leash and being wholeheartedly mischievous. In certain ways it took her 22 years to write the novel (if you count when she first had the idea for the book to when she actually finished the writing portion). Just writing the novel, however, took her eighteen months.

“Star-Crossed” is the first stand alone novel and was released in the year 2019. Sometimes even something like destiny needs a bit of help. Childhood sweethearts Nick (true believer and Aquarius) and Justine (serious skeptic and Sagittarius) bump into one another as adults, it seems inevitable that they would have a life-altering love affair. At least to Justine, anyway. Particularly when she learns about Nick being an astrological devotee, whose choices are guided by the stars, and more specifically, by the horoscopes in his favorite magazine. The same magazine that Justine just so happens to write for.

While Nick keeps not falling headlong in love with her, Justine decides she will take Nick’s horoscope, as well as Fate itself, into her own hands. Of course, Nick isn’t the only Aquarius that is making important life decisions according to what is written in the stars.

Charting the ripple effects of her astrological meddling, and this is a love story about chance, friendship, and how all of us navigate the sorts of choices that are difficult to face on your own.

Minnie has written a funny and smart novel that has you rooting for Nick and Justine, which makes this a truly delightful romantic comedy. This is a charming read, and readers should expect tears and laughter in equal measure. Justine’s silent dialogues in her mind provide the reader with plenty of laugh-out-loud moments, as does her tying herself up in knots attempting to steer Nick towards career happiness, if not love.

“The Lost Love Song” is the second stand alone novel and was released in the year 2020. This the tale of a love song. And like all good love songs, it’s got two parts.

In Australia, Arie Johnson has been waiting impatiently for Diana Clare, a classical pianist, to come back from a world tour, hopeful that after being together for seven years together she’s finally going to agree to marry him. Diana, on her travels, composes a song for Arie. It is the perfect way to express her love for him, knowing that they will spend their lives together. Won’t they? Late one night, her love song is overheard, and starts its own journey all over the world.

In Scotland, Evie Greenlees has been drifting. It has been years since she left from Australia with a one-way ticket, her backpack, and dreams of becoming a poet. Now she spends her days making coffee and nights serving people beer. And she isn’t even certain whether the guy that she lives with is just a flatmate or in fact her boyfriend. Then one day she hears this exquisite love song. One that’s going to connect her to a guy with a broken heart.

This novel is a moving tribute to loving and living, all its pain and glory. Minnie has delivered a sweeping, bittersweet love story that follows the journey of a song from one end of the world to the other, while it slowly works its way back to its intended audience. Her pensive prose in the novel is refined somehow and reaches in and pulls at the heartstrings of the reader and makes for a wonderful rendition of love ion al of its forms. It’s also, above all else, a testimony to music’s power as a means of bringing people together and communicating. It is a funny, fresh, and wonderfully romantic novel.