Guest Blogger, Author Juliet Madison

Thanks Melissa for having me on the blog today to share details about my new release, FAST FORWARD, a romantic comedy with a twist!

The idea for this book came about while reading another book. One of the characters acted older than her years, and I wondered what it would be like to do a story where a character ages suddenly overnight. I thought it would be fun to take an image-conscious beautiful young woman and throw her into middle age where she’s living a life she didn’t expect, and see how she handles it. It was a lot of fun to write! 

After completing the book in June 2012, I spent some time editing and then started pitching it to publishers and agents. In October, I received an offer of publication from Harlequin Australia’s new digital imprint, Escape Publishing, and now I’m excited to say it has been released!

Here’s the blurb:

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?

And here’s an excerpt from the book where the main character, Kelli, is hoping to be able to fit into the dress she wore twenty five years ago...

This looked promising! I pulled out an unopened cardboard package with a picture of a slim woman wearing a skin-coloured support suit on it. 

SlimFX Magic Suit - drop a dress size and reveal your slim inner Goddess!

It must be related to the YouthMagic Facial, I thought, as I peeled off the plastic and withdrew the beige suit, which looked tighter than the red dress. I might need support underwear to be able to fit into the support underwear and that could go on and on. I’d be my own Russian doll. 

I turned the package over to see if there were instructions for the suit, but all it said was to lift it over the head and roll it down the body like so. A diagram showed a woman—who clearly didn’t need the suit—happily putting it on. It also said to put on the bonus SlimBriefs before putting on the dress-shaped magic suit. I tipped the package upside down and shook out the hidden briefs. They looked like they might just fit a seven-year-old.

Okay, here goes. I was going to fit into this dress if it killed me.

I kicked off my shoes and took off my curved hem outfit, opting to leave my bra on even though it wasn’t exactly employee of the month in the breast support department. I stepped into the briefs, the fabric stretching to three times its size and pulled them up towards my hips where they abruptly stopped like a car in back-to-back traffic on the highway, or in this case, the ‘thighway’.

“Ugh,” I grunted in effort, pulling the briefs upwards. They only moved a smidgen, so I grunted and pulled some more. Bungy jumping would have come in handy right about now. “Ugh,” I continued, jumping up and down on the spot in the hope of forcing the briefs over my hips, probably causing the hors d'oeuvres in the kitchen to spring up and down on their platters, while the robotic caterers watched in confusion. 

“C’mon!” I pulled harder and the briefs shot up over my hips and squashed my jelly belly into oblivion. Well, apart from the upper abdomen where the rolls billowed out like a giant mushroom. The magic suit would fix that. 

“Done.” I breathed a sigh of relief until dread washed over me as I realised each trip to the bathroom would be an Olympic feat. I’d just have to go easy on the drinks and anyway, I only had to survive until cake time.

Now for the suit. I held the tiny thing in front of me and pulled at it. It stretched quite well. I lifted it over my head, fed my arms through it and it sat in a horizontal clump across my collarbones. 

Right, step one—check! Now to pull it down over my body. I drew in a deep breath and exhaled, quickly pulling down at the suit, but it only went halfway over my breasts. I breathed deeply again and, letting as much air whoosh out of my lungs as I could, yanked it further down my chest, flattening the boobs on the way. I might as well cancel that mammogram appointment as the SlimFX Magic Suit obviously had its own in-built mammogram function. 

“Phew,” I said, the suit now clumped across my ribcage. 

Step two—check! The last step was to squeeze it down my abdomen and hopefully dissolve the spare tire wrapped around my middle. I shouldn’t have glanced in the mirror at that moment but I did, shocked to see I almost resembled a Christmas cracker; pinched tight at top and bottom but thick in the middle.

“Okay, let’s do this.” I grabbed the suit with both hands and dragged it down my waist, squeezing my torso like a tube of toothpaste and eventually it slid over my hips where it ended just above my knees.

“Mission accomplished.” I nodded in satisfaction. Except ... why were my breaths coming in shallow bursts?

The suit was constricting my ribcage and I couldn’t draw a deep breath. This awareness only made things worse and I panicked. Oh no, oh no, I’d better take this thing off!

* * *

To read more, buy FAST FORWARD in your preferred format via Escape Publishing: http://www.escapepublishing.com.au

Connect with Juliet online:

Website: http://www.julietmadison.com

Blog: http://www.julietmadison.wordpress.com

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/julietmadisonauthor

Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/juliet_madison

GIVEAWAY: To go in the draw for a $25 Amazon gift card, forward your purchase receipt to fastforwardbook (at) gmail (dot) com - replace (at) with @ and (dot) with .

To go in the draw for a $50 Amazon gift card or the runner up prize of a $25 gift card, leave a comment on this post. Comment on other blogs during Juliet’s February blog tour for more entries into the draw! Winners drawn 1st March. Good luck!