NEW AUTHOR SERIES: Juliet Madison

Time for a new series, and what an exciting one it is - New Authors!

All the featured authors are from the Romance Writers of Australia or Romance Writers of New Zealand, and have just been or are newly published with the digital imprints of Australian publishing houses like - Random House, Harlequin, Penguin and Pan Macmillan.

This week, please welcome Juliet Madison.

Juliet Madison is a naturopath-turned-author with a background in dance, art, internet marketing and perfume sales (yes, she was one of those annoying people in department stores who spray you with perfume).

Nowadays she prefers to indulge her propensity for multiple careers by living vicariously through her characters. She likes to put these characters into extraordinary situations and take them on a challenging journey to discover their true passion and inner strength, weaving in some laughs, tears, romance and sometimes a touch of magic along the way.

Living near the beach on the beautiful south coast of New South Wales, Australia, Juliet spends her days homeschooling her son and running her internet business, and her nights writing fiction while doing her best to avoid housework.

Title - FAST FORWARD
Release Date - 1st February 2013
Publisher - Escape Publishing (Harlequin Australia’s digital imprint) 

Call Story - FAST FORWARD was my third completed manuscript, and my first to be published. I finished writing it during RWA’s 50 k’s in 30 days challenge, and after editing I started querying it to agents and entering pitch competitions.

I had a few requests here and there, and racked up about twenty rejections overall! (what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, right?).

Then I went to the RWA conference in August 2012 and heard about Harlequin’s new digital imprint. I was aiming for print initially, but then got thinking about digital... faster release schedule, global reach...etc, and after doing some research I decided to go for it. I submitted to Escape, got a full request after ten days, and an offer of publication after three weeks.

For an impatient person such as myself, this made me very happy! Less than four months after the offer, FAST FORWARD was published. :)

About your book:
Hero - William McSnelly
Heroine - Kelli McSnelly
Setting - City and suburbs, twenty five years in the future.

Aspiring supermodel, Kelli Crawford seems destined to marry her hotshot boyfriend, but on her twenty-fifth birthday she wakes in the future as a fifty-year-old suburban housewife married to the now middle-aged high school nerd.
Trapped in the opposite life of the one she wanted, Kelli is forced to re-evaluate her life and discover what is really important to her. Will she overcome the hilarious and heartbreaking challenges presented to her and get back to the body of her younger self? Or will she be stuck in the nightmare of hot flushes, demanding children, raunchy advances from her husband and hideous support underwear forever?

FAST FORWARD Excerpt - [Set up: Kelli is a twenty-five-year-old model who’s been transported to the future where she’s a fifty-year-old housewife married to a nerd, and is desperately trying to find a way to return to the past...]

“Take a deep breath, Kelli,” Ben instructed. “And then allow yourself to simply fall forward.”
I didn’t know whether to cry or vomit, or both. I imagined my half-digested yolkless eggs going on a bungy jump of their own, only without the cord, landing in the water below with a big splosh. That made me want to vomit even more. I looked back at Ryan one last time, and his enthusiastic expression combined with his ridiculous hairstyle only reinforced the fact that I didn’t belong here. Didn’t belong in the McSnelly family. I needed to get back to my young, carefree, childless life. With Grant. I couldn’t wait for him to wrap his arms around me again and get down on one knee to…
“Arghh!”
I lost my balance before I was ready, my arms circling frantically around in an attempt to stay on the ledge. But to no avail. My scream followed me down before, all of a sudden, the air inside my lungs whooshed out like someone had stuck a vacuum cleaner nozzle in my mouth.
I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t scream anymore. I was surely about to die. Something yanked at my ankles and my body flung upwards. Oh thank God, it must be over…
“Arghh!”
Here we go again. Whatever breath was left was sucked out again, along with what felt like all my insides. Yank. My ankles jerked again and my body went upwards. And back down again. I could feel my eardrums vibrating! Up … and back down again. Oh my God, it’s never going to end! Up, down, up, down. Bounce, bounce, bounce. The eggs in my stomach were surely scrambled by now.
The dark water below swam into focus as the bouncing subsided and I hung there, desperate for something to hold onto. Now what? Were they just going to let me hang? Help! And then the best thing I’d seen all day caught my eye. A boat, yippee! I thought I’d died and was in heaven, but the putrid stench of body odour assured me it wasn’t.
“There you go, sweetie. Wasn’t so bad, was it?” Smelly man said as he pulled me into the boat.
I couldn’t speak. I just lay there, limbs shaking. Wait. He called me sweetie. That’s a name reserved for young women, isn’t it? I must have changed back to ... I jerked upright and looked down at my body.
“Arghh!”
My scream lasted longer than my bungy jump. Nothing had changed. I was still fifty-year-old Kelli Jelly Belly McSnelly. Or McSmelly, thanks to my deodorant-phobic rescuer, whose primal scent had rubbed off on my clothes.

Buy FAST FORWARD via...
Escape Publishing, Amazon, Amazon UK, iTunes/iBookstore, Kobo, Google Play, B&N/Nook, JB Hi-Fi, Booktopia. 


Any upcoming releases?
    •    I DREAM OF JOHNNY - A romantic comedy novella with a fantasy twist , coming 1st September 2013.
Getting three wishes isn't all it's cracked up to be when an unfortunate typo in Mandy's high-tech magic lamp changes her wish for a Greek God into a Geek God.
    •    STAR STRUCK IN SEATTLE - A contemporary romance novella with a magical twist , coming 1st October 2013.
TV extra, Anna, has a crush on the leading actor and seeks help from internet guru ‘Lulu The Love Angel’ to transform from extra to leading lady in life & love. But Lulu really IS an angel and destiny has other ideas.
    •    THE JANUARY WISH - A contemporary romance/women’s fiction, coming 1st January 2014.
An eighteen year old secret, a hidden talent, and two guilty hearts collide when Dr Sylvia Greene’s impromptu wish comes true. 


Connect with Juliet online: Website, Blog, Facebook, Twitter, Goodreads.