The Meet and Greet E-Book

Liz Rain

• Herausgeber: Ylva Publishing
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2026

Beschreibung

When a famous pop star and a straight-laced academic cross paths, it throws both their lives off course in this light-hearted, opposites-attract lesbian romance. Uptight lecturer Jane Miles reluctantly takes her superfan niece along to meet touring Aussie singer Amber Hatfield. Jane comes away with a happy niece and…Amber's phone number? How on earth does that happen? Being whisked into Amber's creative and free-flowing life feels so right but it also threatens to jeopardise Jane's promotion at a prestigious university. Can two such different career women ever find a way to create an unexpected harmony together?

Leseprobe

Table of Contents

About the Book

About Liz Rain

Other Books by Liz Rain

Acknowledgments

Dedication

Author’s Note

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Epilogue

Other Books from Ylva Publishing

About the Book

When a famous pop star and a straight-laced academic cross paths, it throws both their lives off course in this light-hearted, opposites-attract lesbian romance.

Uptight lecturer Jane Miles reluctantly takes her superfan niece along to meet touring Aussie singer Amber Hatfield. Jane comes away with a happy niece and…Amber’s phone number? How on earth does that happen?

Being whisked into Amber's creative and free-flowing life feels so right but it also threatens to jeopardise Jane’s promotion at a prestigious university.

Can two such different career women ever find a way to create an unexpected harmony together?

About Liz Rain

Liz is from sunny Queensland, Australia and grew up doing lots of swimming, cricket and netball. She started a degree in journalism but decided early on she didn’t want to be a journalist because she heard the hours were long and the pay was bad. She couldn’t think of anything else she wanted to study, however, so decided to get the degree anyway.

After that she taught English in Japan, where she joined a soccer team to meet girls. Luckily the captain was a very nice American who is now her wife.

They live quietly in Logan, Queensland with their two daughters and a cat named Carly-Rae. Liz’s interests are women’s Australian Rules football (especially the Brisbane Lions) and teaching herself the mandolin off YouTube.

CONNECT WITH LIZ

Facebook: www.facebook.com/lizrainwrites

E-Mail: [email protected]

Other Books by Liz Rain

Onside Play

Perks of Office

The Meet and Greet

© 2026 by Liz Rain

Available in paperback and e-book formats.

ISBN (paperback): 978-3-69006-127-8

ISBN (e-book): 978-3-69006-128-5

ISBN (pdf): 978-3-69006-129-2

Published by Ylva Publishing, legal entity of Ylva Verlag, e.Kfr.

Ylva Verlag, e.Kfr.

Owner: Astrid Ohletz

Am Kirschgarten 2

65830 Kriftel

Germany

www.ylva-publishing.com

First edition: 2026

We explicitly reserve the right to use our works for text and data mining as defined in § 44b of the German Copyright Act.

No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are a product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to locales, events, business establishments, or actual persons—living or dead—is entirely coincidental.

Depending on your device, the text might be displayed differently from the publisher’s approved version.

Credits

Edited by Lenir Costa and Michelle Aguilar

Cover Design by Ilona Gostyńska-Rymkiewicz

Print Layout by Ylva Publishing

Image rights cover illustration provided by Shutterstock LLC; iStock; Dreamstime; Canva; AdobeStock; Depositphotos

Graphics provided by Freepik

Acknowledgments

Thank you to Astrid Ohletz and Ylva Publishing for allowing me to live out my childhood dream of being a published author. It has been a real pleasure to take this book from concept to finished product with you.

Thanks to content editor Lenir Costa at Ylva for knowing when more melody needed to be added, and copy editor Michelle Aguilar for making the rhythm flow.

A very big thank you to Declan Smith, my wonderful sensitivity reader. As you so perfectly put it—if you’ve met one autistic person, you’ve met one autistic person.

This book is partly a love letter to all the pop divas I adore so much. I send my thanks and appreciation for you out into the universe.

I acknowledge the traditional owners of the land on which this book was written—the Turrbul and Jaggera peoples of the Yugambeh language region. I also acknowledge the traditional owners of the various lands where parts of this story are set. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people are Australia’s first storytellers, communicators, and creators of culture. I pay my respects to their elders, past and present.

Dedication

For Dani. You’re my favourite singer, even though you forget all the words.

Author’s Note

This story features a character with autism spectrum disorder, and she shares past experiences of being misunderstood and talked down to. I’ve tried to get across that her autism is a part of who is she is, but not all she is.

She reflects one individual perspective and is not meant to be a stand-in for all autistic people.

Chapter 1

“Align steering wheel, check rear-view, right at a forty-five-degree angle, invert…and, done.” Jane pressed the button to switch the car off.

“Whoa, one-shot reverse parallel park. Driving goals right there,” Sara said as she jumped out. “And on the wrong side of the road too.”

Jane joined Sara on the footpath and admired the lovely, even distance she had managed to get from the curb. “Like I said in your driving lessons—stick to your process, and you can manage any situation.”

Sara flung her arm around her aunt’s shoulders, and they headed towards Wilshire Boulevard. “You’re the only Aussie I know who’s not shit scared to drive in LA.”

“I first learned to drive in Sydney. The drivers there are a lot more unpredictable than the polite Brisbane motorists you’re used to. The freeways here still scare me, though.”

Sara took a deep breath and flung her head back.

Jane inhaled the dry winter evening air as well. There was no escaping the high concentration of car exhaust pollution, but she didn’t say anything. Sara would only call her a worry wart. Tonight was all about fun, after all. Jane needed it after the year she’d had.

They rounded a corner, and a queue of people came into view, snaking up towards the brightly lit El Rey Theatre.

Jane smiled as Sara skipped and clapped her hands. Sara had expressed joy through movement ever since she was a baby. At twenty years old, she showed no signs of stopping, so she probably never would.

As they joined the end of the queue, Jane assessed the other concertgoers. They were almost exclusively women in their late twenties or early thirties. Jane was nearing forty, so she and Sara fell outside the typical age range.

Jane cleared her throat and tapped her fingertips on the side of her leg. She often shied away from doing things that would cause the people around her to have big reactions, even if they were positive ones.

“Sara.”

“Yes, Aunt Jane.” She smirked, making fun of Jane’s sudden formality of tone. She usually called her just Jane, or sometimes Jane-O.

Jane inclined her head then continued. “I know how much you enjoy this singer’s music, so I upgraded our tickets to premium platinum, front-row balcony—oof!”

Sara had clamped her into a tight hug and was emitting an “eeeeeeee” noise right next to her ear.

Jane smiled. “OK! Listen for a moment. The package also includes a private meet and greet after the concert.”

“Ahhhhh!” Sara wrapped Jane up in another massive hug, bouncing her up and down but not quite able to lift her. “Oh my God! I don’t fricken believe it! What the heck am I going to say to her? Eeeee! Thank you, thank you, thank you!”

Jane righted herself and straightened her button-down shirt. “You’re very welcome.” She cleared her throat again. “Plus, well, this outing was going to end up costing a little less than I originally planned for.”

Sara’s eyebrows creased. “Because you had to resell Lauren’s ticket.”

Jane nodded. “Luckily there are enough fans of this singer in LA that someone on the website wanted it.”

“Hold on.” Sara narrowed her eyes. “You have no idea who we’re going to see tonight, do you?”

“Um, well—I know the name. It’s…” Jane had her back to the theatre but jerked her head around, trying to read the illuminated black-and-white marquee.

Sara jumped in front of her, holding her backpack up to block the view.

Jane jumped. “It’s—oof!” She landed awkwardly. Then, with a swift movement, she dodged around her niece and read the marquee.

“Amber Hatfield!” she said, still trying to catch her breath.

There was a smattering of applause from the group in front of them in line. “Got there in the end, love!” said a bloke in a puffer vest in a broad Australian accent.

Jane flushed and leaned towards Sara. “You know it’s not that I don’t care about you and your interests. Some things just don’t stick in my head like they should: pop star things, reality TV things, and that TikTok dance you attempted to teach me. I’m sorry.”

“Oh shit, no! Don’t apologise!” Sara flung her arms around her. “I shouldn’t have teased you. You wouldn’t be you without your epic blind spot for all things pop culture. Plus, it’s more important that things like baseline anthropological studies and peer-reviewed sociology theory papers stick in your head. Just let everything else slide right off, like, you know, a club sandwich off a car roof.”

Jane chuckled. “To quote the famous old saying.”

Sara gripped Jane’s arm. “Oo! The line’s moving.”

They fell into step as the queue became a slow procession.

“I can’t believe you didn’t know about Amber Hatfield. She’s the definition of a household name. An Aussie legend. It’s like never having heard of Vegemite.”

Jane glanced skywards for a moment. “I’ve heard of Vegemite. I guess your Jade Caulfield is a household name in every house but one.”

Sara snorted with laughter. “You’re low-key hilarious, you know that? Jade Caulfield.” She chuckled and shook her head.

Jane’s eyes darted back up to the marquee. “Ha ha, yes, got you. Just kidding. Amber Hatfield is the name of the musician we’re about to see.”

The queue stopped again, and they stood for a while, the twilight fading into night-time as Sara chatted to the other fans, scrolled on her phone, and read some of a thick paperback with a unicorn on the cover.

Excited murmurs from the front of the queue reached them, and Jane put away her copy of Sociological Paradigms and Organisational Analysis and trudged along with the line.

As they neared the doors, Jane tried to quash the trepidation that was buzzing around her insides. Pop music isn’t all that bad, even at an intense volume, for potentially hours at a time. She let out a “tsk!”. She had forgotten her earplugs. I’ll have sore feet and lifelong hearing loss from this show.

Jane rolled back her shoulders and reminded herself that doing something different might be the best thing for her.

Chapter 2

Amber crashed down into the chair in front of her dressing room mirror. Her skin was hot and had a sheen of sweat. She closed her eyes and took three deep breaths.

Her assistant hovered behind her holding two towels. He stayed silent.

“Gorgeous energy tonight, Teddy,” she finally said, opening her eyes and holding up her hand.

Teddy handed her the hot towel, and she started patting at her neck. The sweat had to come off, but there wasn’t time before the meet and greet for a new face of make-up, or new hair. Just time for an on-the-run touch up. And a new outfit, of course.

She leaned forward and curled her upper lip down, wiping away beads of sweat but none of her lipstick. She gave her reflection a nod.

After twenty-five years as a touring singer, she couldn’t begin to count the hours she’d spent in front of dressing room mirrors. The features she saw there gave her satisfaction—made up with incredible artistry by Fabia—her eyes done with a subtle cat’s-eye flourish.

“We’ve got twelve groups for meet and greets tonight,” said Teddy.

The margins on touring were tight, especially now with transport costs so high. It was never rivers of gold, but recently the diehard fans paying overs for a chance to meet her was often the difference between a tour being profitable and barely breaking even.

“Thank heavens LA is crawling with Aussies, eh?” she said to his reflection over her left shoulder in the mirror.

“There’s always a good number of American fans who want meet and greets too. You’re not a complete nobody over here.”

Amber patted her forehead and grinned at her assistant’s ability to deliver a sentence that was a little reassuring but full of snark. She loved Teddy (short for Tadahisa) to death and appreciated that his Japanese sincerity and seriousness had been blunted down to a truly Aussie shit-talking dryness.

Twelve parties for meet and greets was the best number they’d had on this US tour. On a snowy night in Boise, Idaho, a couple of weeks ago, only one married couple had shown up. Amber could have talked to them much longer, but the two men had needed to head off to avoid a forecasted blizzard.

Amber had questioned whether having the last show of the tour in LA the day after Christmas would sell any tickets, but her management had talked her into it. Their argument was there were plenty of people with disposable income kicking around LA that time of year, and they would be desperate to kill the dead time between Christmas and New Year’s.

She scoffed at her reflection. Desperate souls, doing anything to kill the dead time. Helping these people was the very point of the entertainment industry, after all. What else was any performer or creator doing?