Following a humiliating break-up, Brianna returns home to Brisbane with her little dog, feeling like a shadow of her former self. But living with her parents again isn't ideal, and her sister is determined to get her to socialise with their old friends on her first night back. Despite wanting to stay home and wallow, she instead comes face to face with her old high school crush, who is looking even better five years later. Having spent several years working for his father in rural Queensland, Jake wins a luxury apartment back in Brisbane, the city he grew up in and where the friends he loves are all busy getting on with their lives. But when his best friend's little sister, Brianna—the girl he had secretly loved from afar in high school—returns and needs a place to stay, he doesn’t think twice about offering her the apartment under one let him stay whenever he’s in town. After picking up their friendship like no time has passed, being back in each other's lives has them questioning what they really want from life and love while dealing with overprotective friends and family, and begs the question - does friends-with-benefits ever truly work? Set in Brisbane, Australia, The Winning Ticket is the first book in the Circle of Friends series, a series of interconnected stand alone novels following the lives and loves of a group of friends as they navigate through their mid-twenties and thirties, finding love and themselves along the way.