Julia Madeleine Stops Today on Tour--To Read My Review!

Scarlet rose. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The Truth
  About
    Scarlet Rose




By Julia Madeleine




In spotlighting Julia during her blog tour and on my blog this month, I read somewhere that as she was writing this book, Scarlet Rose, one of her characters, took over...

Although I can never figure out what a writer means when she says this, I must admit that this novel "proves" that it is possible. Else, why did I enjoy reading this novel about such a hateful woman?!? I keep using the picture of a scarlet rose--such a beautiful image. And, if you read Scarlet Sins, you will find that Sylvia became Scarlet Rose when she started to dance at a local club... But, like a rose, when the season is over, she dies... Sylvia was now dead to everything good in the world...

She had already killed one man...

The Truth of the matter is that, Sylvia married Charlie at one point and they later divorced. She then forced her daughter, who was now just as beautiful as Sylvia once was, to begin bringing in money working as a stripper as well. Fiona was a teenager at the time...

The Truth of the matter was that Sylvia was never meant to be a mother and Fiona was never meant to be a burlesque dancer. In fact, Fiona had stayed closer to her stepfather Charlie than her mother. As the daughter she was, Charlie was generous with his money. Sylvia knew that she had to be Charlie's lover--why else would a man financially support a young girl. In fact, in her mind now, Fiona had seduced Charlie and had been the cause of the divorce!

You can't help but begin to feel sympathy for Fiona...

Fiona truly loved her stepfather and spent as much time with him as possible. He was supporting her and did buy her presents; but they were never involved in any way. But then Charlie was murdered...

And all eyes turned toward Fiona...

Fortunately, Fiona was open and honest with the police and they soon were using her as more of an informant, bouncing ideas off her related to the remainder of the family as well as with what else Charlie had been involved. But while Fiona was struggling with her personal loss, she also discovered memories from her past when a young man turned up claiming to be Charlie's son and heir!

Like the Tattoo artist that she is, Julia Madeleine was confronted with a bitter, angry woman, a sociopath who never cared for anyone other than herself. Madeleine let her run with her life's desires for as long as possible, but, like a bad tattoo, she had to go... But not before Scarlet Rose had entered a new life, with new seductions to be made...

Wow! I could almost feel how Scarlet Rose had taken over this novel--she was a woman, committed to get everything she deserved...and in the end, no big climax, no major...Oh Yeah, you think this woman would quietly go away?

This is soooo unique that I loved it! Enter into the Burlesque world of the beautiful and watch Scarlet Rose dance through her deadly life... Drama at its highest!


GABixlerReviews

Julia Madeleine's Shares on Blog Tour!

Scarlet rose. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Writers Are Such Thieves

Fiction writers can be like Dr. Frankenstein when it comes to creating characters. Although not exactly grave robbers, we find the bits and pieces we need in the people we know; friends, relatives and even strangers. We might take their childhood memories, the stories about their grandmother, their first love, their first broken heart We will steal their mannerisms, the way they laugh, that striking raise of an eyebrow, that special little tilt of their head they aren’t even aware that they do, and amalgamate them with our imagination. Secrets told in confidence can even work their way into our stories, such thieves we are, us fiction writers. At least, that's how it usually works for me.

Then it all gets sifted through the imagination and molded into a new person that becomes a character. These new imaginary people take their first delicate steps across the page, and as the chapters progress, they will grow into their own individual people, doing and saying things that surprise even their creator. Sometimes these new characters, these Frankenstein monsters we construct, even take over the story. This is precisely what happened in my new psychological thriller, The Truth About Scarlet Rose.

Originally Scarlet Rose, the washed-up burlesque queen from the 1960s, was a secondary character, a mere supporting cast member. But her personality became so huge, and she demanded so much attention, that she somehow managed to bully her way into becoming the main character of the story, even going so far as to get her name in the title.

Scarlet Rose, who’s real name is Sylvia, is based on a friend’s mother from when I was a teen. My friend “Debbie” at the tender age of fourteen was responsible for the care of her two younger sisters and brother. Her mother was a single parent supporting her family on social assistance and went out to the bar with her girlfriends nearly every night. She was a stereotype. Often she’d come home angry and drunk and scream at Debbie like a drill sergeant. She was a tyrant and Debbie feared her. Yet she was desperate to please her mother and win her love and approval which always seemed to elude her. It was this mother and daughter dynamic that fascinated me. The perversion of the parent-child relationship, that I found so curious in my friend’s relationship with her mother, plays out in my novel between Scarlet Rose and her daughter. Scarlet has my friend’s mother’s beautiful red hair, her dark piercing eyes that can shred you to pieces, reduce your very being to tatters with a single look. She has elements from other people too. Like how she throws back her head and releases her throaty booming laugh. I stole that from my sister-in-law. Her scoliosis, the result from a crushed disc in her spine from being hit by a car at age five, was taken from an ex-coworker.

Plenty of bits and pieces of other people went into the creation of the monster that Scarlet Rose is in the story. When her black little heart began to beat, dripping it's venom all over the page, like the narcissistic psychopath that she is, she went and stole the entire story.

“Let us not forget that the greatest composers were also the greatest thieves. They stole from everyone and everywhere.” - Pablo Casals

Review of Prequel, Scarlet Sins, by Julia Madeleine!

Scarlet rose. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Scarlet Sins


By Julia Madeleine




Sometimes a character makes such an impact on readers that they want to know more--How did this individual get to the place in life they are when we meet her. Julia Madeleine, in writing The Truth About Scarlet Rose, found herself in that situation. Even before her novel came out, early readers started talking about the main character Scarlet Rose, and asking questions. I have to admit I read the novel first, simply because the book came in and I tend to pick up hard copies first--yes, I enjoy "real" books better than ebooks...anyway...

By the time I read Scarlet Sins, which is only 22 pages, I had Scarlet Rose already figured out...Let's face it, sometimes a beautiful rose is just that, it is there to be admired, to be beautiful. When that happens to some women, or men, they decide to take advantage of that beauty. Or, perhaps, like everybody else...a rose is not a rose is not a rose--sometimes they are sociopaths...

I highly recommend you read the Prequel first. Some of you may have read Julia's short stories on my blog this month as she is being spotlighted, and have found that she can pack her plot into a few effectively chosen words. Whether or not you choose to read Scarlet Sins, you will find Scarlet Rose a fascinating creation.

Note: In Scarlet Sins, we meet the "remarkably beautiful queen of the burlesque scene in 1960s Toronto." In the novel, she is no longer dancing on the burlesque, she is married with adult children..

Sylvia was her real name and she knew there was something wrong with her, even to the point that she realized that she could not totally blame it on her family. Was it their bad blood or just hers? But even she recognized that she could not blame any part of the murder on them...

Her first bad decision was to get pregnant. She thought the boy would marry her and take her away from her life. But he had refused! Even insulting her by saying that when he did get married, he would want a virgin! She was 16, pregnant, and already with 2 years of having to deal with scoliosis...She was learning the hard lessons early in her life...

She had gone to an unwed mothers home, but when they moved to take her baby from her, she had taken Fiona and ran. Sylvia decided never to tell Fiona about the bad family life she had left. She got a waitress job at a local club, but even with tips, she was not making it. She looked toward the girls on the stage, seduced and fascinated by the power they had just by using their bodies. It didn't take long for an enterprising man to see that desire and suggested she enter an amateur striptease contest...and that was the beginning...

For awhile she was a much-in-demand star...

But then she met a petty thief, Charlie and it was only a matter of time before her life started going downhill...

Perhaps this short story could stand on its own, but I wouldn't recommend you get it, unless you enjoy short stories. The prequel takes you exactly where it is meant to...to the beginning of the novel. If you are the type of person who, upon hearing about somebody who has killed others, and have said, "I always thought he was nice--a quiet individual, then you will definitely want to read Scarlet Sins and get to know the background life of the main character, Scarlet Rose, before you begin to...hate her...


GABixlerReviews

Julia Madeleine is the youngest daughter of Irish immigrant parents from Belfast, Northern Ireland. Born in Canada and raised in a small town in south-western Ontario on the shores of Lake Huron, Julia honed her dual passions for art and fiction writing from the time she was old enough to hold a crayon. As a teenager she moved to Toronto and graduated in Media Writing from Sheridan College. She wrote for a number of entertainment magazines, while spending all her free time writing fiction, and then in 2000, her passion for art led her, quite by accident, into a career in the tattoo industry.

“I wasn’t looking to become a tattoo artist, it actually found me. Since I was a teenager my focus has been on writing fiction, art was something that always came naturally to me, I never had to work for it. And it never occurred to me that I could make a career out of it until one day I found myself without a job and the opportunity to learn to tattoo came to me via my husband, a professional tattooist.”

Home for Julia is Mississauga, where she lives with her husband and teenaged (future tattoo artist) daughter. For a year she lived in the country on a 30-acre property in the middle of nowhere, which became the inspiration for earlier novel, No One To Hear You Scream. When not writing or sticking needles into people, Julia enjoys cooking, sewing, yoga, meditation, health and fitness, gardening, and anything that doesn't involve snow or sports or rollercoasters. Julia loves shoes and harbours a secret fantasy-career as a shoe designer. She’s also obsessed with true crime shows and researching ways to kill people which makes her husband nervous.


Related articles

• The Books of Julia Madeleine...
• Julia Madeleine Shares Short Story - Unexpected Guest...

http://gabixlerreviews-bookreadersheaven.blogspot.com/2012/04/tesla-still-looking-flash-fiction-by.html 

Reminder: Julia Madeleine will visit Book Reader's Heaven tomorrow, May 16th, during her Blog Tour! Hurry Back!

Writer Julia Madeleine's Other Talent!

While I'm not a total fan of placing art on bodies (I'd be one of those mentioned below that would sneak a rose or butterfly somewhere where nobody else could see it, LOL), I do have to admire the artistic talent wherever it is! I must, therefore, also recognize the "other" talent that Julia Madeleine has...and am reblogging an article that I found fascinating... Her link is provided. I didn't know about having something done like the samples below! Aren't they beautiful!?!


Ink in the Skin!


When I'm not obsessing over a word or turn of phrase on a manuscript, or the word count on a short story of mayhem and suspense, I'm busy at my day job sticking needles into people. While ink on paper is my obsession, ink in the skin is also something I'm passionate about. But if you've ever read my blog or you're following me on Twitter, you might notice I don't tweet about tattoos or have tattoo artist followers (okay, maybe a couple that slipped in somehow). I don't blog about tattooing either. I do occasionally post a photo on Facebook of a tattoo that I did if I particularly like it. 

The reason I don't talk about tattoos is that I find I have to leave the job at work. I have to get away from it. And that's simply to save myself from burning out, which periodically I go through degrees of after ten years in the business. And when my brain is fully immersed in writing and all things fiction and writerly, (which is all the time) ink on the paper and not ink in the skin, is where I want to be. But today, I'm going to deviate a bit from talking about words on paper and talk about....'gasp' tattoos of all the darned things in the world! In particular how it's changed over the years from when I was a miscreant kid, sneaking down to the local tattoo shop and watching my friends get inked. 

So just for fun, lets take a look at tattooing today in the year 2011 compared to tattooing in the 80s. And I'll post some photos of my favourite pieces that I've inked.... 

The tattoo industry has evolved light years since the 80s when I was a kid, in the same way technology has. And that evolution has been almost simultaneous with technology, although the two are really unrelated in that the traditional coil tattoo machine hasn't changed all that much since its invention in the late 1800s. While there are newer types of machines that artists uses these days, the traditional coil still dominates. What has evolved though, in the last decade in particular, is the caliber of tattoo artists themselves and thus the quality of their work. The ability to create life-like images of photographic quality that was unheard of in the 80s, is now commonplace. 

You Want It When? snicker... 

Prior to the surge in tattooing, before it was fashionable, before all the rock stars had sleeves and when they dressed like girls with their poofy hair and spandex, tattoos were just for clubbers and criminals. But if you really wanted to get one you could walk into your local tattoo shop (every town had at least one and it was usually run by a biker/clubber), and if you weren't too intimidated, you could pick a design off the wall, then you were sitting in the chair getting it inked. Where I grew up in small town Sarnia, Ontario on the shores of Lake Huron, we had one guy in the entire town doing tattoos. Happy Jack's Tattoos. Happy Jack worked out of his basement and he was a miserable son of a bitch. But I suppose he had aspirations. And that's how it worked back then, you walked in, you picked your design, you sat down, wam-bam! Your coolness factor just skyrocketed. 

Now, fast forward roughly 30 years into the future and things in the tattoo industry are quite different. Tattooing is no longer underground. It's even mainstream. We have conventions, hordes of magazines, companies providing all kinds of industry products from specialized chairs and equipment, to tattoo machines, and lines of specialty pigments. Shows like Miami Ink and LA Ink allow the average person a peek into the tattoo world to see that we all aren't degenerates but just people like everyone else. Nor do tattoo artists have horns and breathe fire. Well, maybe some of them do...like the Master Of The Macabre, Paul Booth from Last RitesAnd the customers are average people from soccer moms, to grandmothers and every one in between, all backgrounds, races, religions, professions and levels of education. But the days of getting your tattoo on the spot are long gone. The artists at the good tattoo shops are booked ahead, often months ahead. There are even world renowned artists in the industry who are booked years in advance. Jeff Gogue (my personal favourite) is booked nearly 2 years in advance and currently not accepting any more clients. 

Still the average person who hasn't spent a lot of time inside a tattoo shop is always shocked when they ask to book an appointment for a tattoo and we start flipping the pages in our calender until we're in the next season. Sadly we're not like McDonald's, we don't have a drive through window. But like Mama used to say, "Good things come to those who wait". And a good tattoo is always worth the wait. Just ask the people who went for a quickie-cheapie job somewhere less experienced and thus less busy, and then came back to us to get it covered up because it was crap. It always costs so much more doing it that way too. But alas, a lot of people have to learn things the hard way. You can lead a horse to water, but you can't drown them if they don't want to drink. Put a bullet in them maybe... snicker But I digress, we were talking about tattoos, no? 

But Mom, I Don't Want A Tattoo! 

When I was a teenager (way back a bazillion light years ago) as an act of rebellion you would skip school and go get a tattoo. If you were a girl then the standard was a butterfly, a rose, or a little hot stuff devil, usually on your ankle, your boob or your pelvis. And it meant you were bad. Now, in the new milenium parents are bringing their kids in, helping pick out their tattoos and flipping the cost on their credit cards. In the same way you have the family doctor and the family dentist, you can now have the family tattooist. And we do go through entire families; kids, parents, grandparents, aunties and uncles. In fact some parents are so eager to have their kids tattooed that we regularly have them trying to bring their under age kids in to get some ink done. We've even had parents get all hostile when we refuse them. So acts of teenage rebellion, while it can still be getting tattooed for some, others have to get a little more creative and have some other body modifications in order to feel independent, like 3D implants. 

Cross-contamination Barriers, Autoclaves, And Other Strange Words... 

Happy Jack's fingers looked like a mechanics, except instead of oil discolouring his fingernail beds, it was pigment. Gloves were unheard of back then. So was sterilization. This was prior HIV and Hepatitis and other blood born pathogens, when tattooers didn't always need to change their needles. The innocence of those days are gone. Now, professional tattoo artists take the health and safety of their customers very seriously and are educated in cross contamination practices. Needles are always single use only, and any tubes are properly sterilized in an autoclave that is subject to regular spore tests to ensure its functioning properly. Here in Ontario tattoo studios are governed by the Ontario Health Board, are subject to regular inspections and required to comply with certain codes of practice to ensure sterility. So tattoo shops operate within the same guidelines as dentists and medical practitioners. 

Let Your Fingers Do The Talking, And Your Neck, And Inside Your Bottom Lip... 

It used to be that tattoo artists would not tattoo certain areas of the body. Below the wrists, the feet and above the neck was off limits. This was primarily for two reasons. First, the quality of the skin is not ideal to tattoo. It's not smooth, the skin gets lots of wear and exfoliation, the ink tends not to go in very well, it tends not to heal well, and therefore it might not stay well. Secondly, it's a highly visible area that's difficult to hide and it can pose problems with future career choices and eventually become a source of embarrassement, especially on the hands or the neck. 

Nowadays, we get more requests for finger tattoos, neck and foot tattoos than ever before. Even for first tattoos, people are asking for something on their fingers and on the side of their neck. But when I see a fresh-faced kid barely out of high school asking for Love/Hate across his fingers, the mom in me takes over. "No you can't get that tattooed son, what the hell's the matter with you?" Smack, smack goes my hand up side their squash. Okay, not literally, but believe me I want to. So no, sorry kids no ink on the fingers and definitely no gangster stamps on your necks. Go buy a Sharpie, that way you can just wash it off when you don't like it anymore...like in the morning when you wake up and realize what you've done!Smack, smack, smack. 

Go Big Baby, Or Go Home... 


Straight up, little tattoos look dumb, especially on a big guy with a big arm. Even worse is a lot of little tattoos in various places on the body, giving one the "fridge magnet" effect. In the 80s and prior it was common to get small tattoos in a frame of skin. Today, bigger highly detailed pieces are astheticaly superior. Tattoos that wrap around the area, and flow with the musculature and the lines of the body, compliment and enhance a person's appearance in a way that a little hot stuff devil on your butt will never be able to do. If it's a custom piece that's really well done by a highly skilled artist, it will be something you'll be proud to display on your skin for a lifetime. 


Check out more of my art and my husband Fabien's at Malefic Tattoos 

Julia Madeleine Shares Short Story - Unexpected Guest...

Zombie haiti ill artlibre jnl (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

An Unexpected Guest
by Julia Madeleine

“I think he’s dead,” Amy said, panting as she stared at the man who lay face down in the ravine.

His construction hat was askew from his greasy head, one leg bent in an unnatural position. He was a small, wiry man, and boy could he run. Amy cast her gaze around on the grass until she spied a long stick.

“Poke him with this, Jessie,” she said, and handed it to me. “See if he moves.”

“No, you do it, I’m not touching him.” I pushed the stick back toward her.

“Why should I do it? You do it.”

We stood arguing the way we usually did and I wondered why I continued to be friends with Amy when we fought just as much as we laughed. I supposed it was because she was my only friend and rather than spending the summer by myself, I continued to hang out with her. Besides, she could sneak cigarettes from her mother’s purse.

“What do you think happened to the old geezer?”

“I don’t know,” Amy said. “Maybe a heart attack.”

I stood with folded arms, my heart still racing from our pursuit through the field. I worried suddenly that someone might have witnessed what just transpired, and I scanned the park. There were only a couple of people over in the tennis courts today because it was too hot.

I watched Amy bend at the waist, her ebony braids spilling around her brown shoulders as she leaned over, reaching out with a skinny arm. She touched the stick to the centre of the old geezer’s back. He didn’t budge.

“He’s deader than a door nail. Going to be hitching a ride in the meat wagon.” Amy said. We giggled. But after a moment my stomach began to tremble.

A roasting August sun blanketed my head. My vision blurred. I felt as if I couldn’t get any air.

“What’s the matter with you?” Amy asked.

Her chocolate eyes swam before me and then I was lying on the ground with the scent of the summer scorched earth filling my nostrils. I turned on my back, squinted at a sky as murky as dishwater, and focused on taking in air. Amy’s ringing laugh penetrated my ears. She leaned over me and I could smell her coconut and spice scent from the stuff her mother used to braid her hair.

“Hey, we should bury him and turn him into a zombie,” Amy said.

I sat up after a moment, the dizziness passed.

“A zombie? What the heck are you talking about?” I asked, and squinted up at her.

“Yeah, just like in Haiti. We can keep him under our power so he will have to do what we say.”

“How do you make a zombie?”

“Well, first we have to give him a zombie powder. Then we have to burry him and come back at midnight and he’ll be turned into a zombie. Or I can just say a spell since I don’t have any of that stuff.”

“How do you know so much about zombies anyway?”

“My Grandfather was a Voodoo Priest. My mother told me he kept zombies as slaves back in Haiti.”

I stood up and dusted the seat of my shorts, then looked down at the little construction-worker man still lying broken and dirty in the same position.

“I think we should get out of here.” I was worried we’d be in more trouble over this dead guy than our vandalism at the new houses.

“Wait till I do the spell.”

I watched Amy lifted her arms and make circular motions in the air with her hands. She danced around on her spindly legs, her sandals slapping the ground as her summer dress spun about her knees. She clapped her hands and turned to me with a huge white grin. We both burst into giggles and ran away.

Later that day, safe back in the cocoon of my house, the events of the afternoon seemed like nothing more than a dream. I decided to forget about the old geezer and the spell Amy put on him. I placated myself that it was all pretend, that Amy couldn’t really cast spells and turn people into zombies. It was all just pretend.

After I fell asleep that night, I woke up unexpectedly and sat up in bed, fully awake. The house was quiet and my room was dark except for a stripe of moonlight that cast over my comforter through the window. 

I got out of bed and wandered across the wood floor. A massive full moon gazed in at me as I pushed the curtains aside. I looked down and drew in a breath at the sight before me. I felt my insides being sucked into a vortex in the centre of my body like a black hole. In the middle of the yard stood a figure awash in silvery moonlight. He was staring up at me, his face pale, his wiry body stiff as a corpse, his construction hat clutched in one hand.

I gasped and dove back under the covers. Then the back door of our house slammed. My ears strained, tuned to hear the most infinitesimal of sounds. Pin-pricks of pain shot though my arms and travelled up the back of my neck. It was him! The old geezer was coming for me! 

I heard his heavy footsteps coming up the stairs like an unexpected guest. Why was our dog not barking? I wanted to scream, call out to my parents, but I couldn’t muster whatever it was I needed--courage perhaps-- to open my mouth and make the sound come out. I was struck frozen with the sound of those footsteps coming down the hall.

Finally a harpy scream tore from my throat and split the air like a lightning crack.

“Jessie, Jessie!” The familiar outline of my dad’s face, eyes sparkling in the moonlight, materialized before me.

I lay back down on my pillow in the sweat soaked sheet. Of course. It was all pretend. All of it, just pretend.

~~~

 

The Books of Julia Madeleine...

NOW AVAILABLE!

Scarlet Rose, the once remarkably beautiful, queen of the burlesque scene in 1960s Toronto, has aged into a decrepit bitter alcoholic, living on welfare and her daughter's handouts—a daughter she forced into the adult entertainment industry at the age of sixteen to support the family. Now in 1983, Scarlet's wealthy ex-husband has been found tortured and murdered in a hotel room, and her twenty-two-year-old daughter Fiona, must help the police find the killer.

While Fiona navigates her way through the dark recesses of her family's history, uncovering shocking secrets that threaten to destroy her, Scarlet Rose employs the skills she learns in Sun Tzu's The Art Of War, fixating on making a new life for herself using other people's money. But when she befriends a lonely American woman sitting on an inheritance, greed that knows no bounds, cold-blooded murder and identity theft, might just prove to be Scarlet's undoing.

Praise for Julia Madeleine's debut thriller, Scarlet Rose:s at times 

Julia Madeleine's debut book is at time disturbing and unforgiving and throughout un-put-downable. . . SCARLET ROSE shows a flair for the craft of mystery and an elegance in storytelling. I look forward to more.”- Jon Jordan, Crimespree Magazine

“Never before have the dark corners of Canada's night life and welfare underbelly been spelled out with such enticing sensitivity. The addition of a character based on real life murderer Dennis Howe deepens the intrigue to a frightening level. Scarlet Rose is both a tantalizing tale and a dramatic heartbreaker.”- Alex Hutchinson author of "Virgin Gloves"

“Canadian author Julia Madeleine’s debut novel, Scarlet Rose, begins and ends in violence and lingers in between with all of the attributes of a classic noir novel . . . Scarlet Rose, is first-class in its genre. But be aware. As good as it is, it ain’t no cozy.”- M. Wayne Cunningham, Mysterious Reviews www.mystery-books.com

“SCARLET ROSE is an absorbing, fast-paced read.”-Diane Fanning author of "OUT THERE" from St. Martin's Press

“Madeleine’s writing style is hypnotic and captures the reader from the very first page.”- Mary Menzel, www.allthesebooks.com

“Author Julia Madeleine has written an edgy debut that grips with compassion and greed. This book establishes her not only as a practitioner of the mystery genre but a storyteller of insight, a writer who can set out a life path and make the reader eager to follow it. . . A debut that is both raw and satisfying, with writing that compels the reader to want more."- Don Graves, Hamilton Spectator

“In her debut novel, Julia Madeleine has assembled an interesting cast of needy characters in a suitably dark setting. Enter the world of Fiona Dalton: where child becomes parent; where manipulation is currency; where nothing is quite what it seems and no-one is really who (or what) they appear to be...I kept turning the pages wondering exactly how this story would end. Well, the book came to an end but aspects of the story are still active in my imagination. I want more.”- Jennifer Cameron-Smith, Amazon Top 100 Reviewer

In the prequel to The Truth About Scarlet Rose, life for an unwed teenage mother in the 1960s can be a hard road. Sylvia knows all too well how limited her options are. At seventeen taking a job as a burlesque entertainer to support herself and her baby is her best hope. But choosing to marry an older man and have a family with a cheating, boozing, gambling husband who makes promises he can't keep, becomes her downfall. And for a woman with limited choices, her decision to commit murder is not one she makes lightly, but carefully plans and executes in cold blood.

Stick A Needle In My Eye is a collection of 17 short stories of mayhem that are not for the faint of heart. These stories, one of which was nominated for a Derringer Award in 2011, have been featured in a number of crime fiction magazines.Buckets of blood are spilt between these pages, and some nice (and some not so nice) people die horrible deaths. Here you will meet a pedophile who picks the wrong little girl to try and molest; a clown who gets bullied by his wife one time too many, a serial killer who likes to take postmortem photographs of his victims, more than one angry wife/girlfriend seeking revenge on the other woman, and more than one escaped mental patient with murder in her heart.

In upstate New York, Brett and Pamela Jameson find the house of their dreams on twenty acres of land. Bucolic and serene, it is the answer to all of their prayers. But their dream soon turns into a nightmare when violent ex-gang member Rory Madden, the property’s former owner returns, and will stop at nothing to reclaim the home he lost to foreclosure. Rory unearths the secrets hidden within the Jameson family, and begins to leverage his knowledge to slowly drive wedges between them. When their seventeen year-old daughter Justine falls prey to Rory’s advances, she becomes a co-conspirator, setting about a series of increasingly treacherous events that could forever tear the Jameson family apart.

A terrifying odyssey into the dark side of the American dream, No One to Hear You Scream captures the fear of the modern middle-class, the alienation of those left out, and the heart-stopping terror at the realization that it can all be taken away in an instant.

"With NO ONE TO HEAR YOU SCREAM, Julia Madeleine fashions a dark tale of suburbia gone wrong that plants her solidly in the company of such genre stalwarts as Lisa Gardner and Harlan Coben. An all-too-real, truly terrifying thriller that turns the American Dream into the ultimate nightmare. A major effort that will leave you screaming for more." - best selling author, Jon Land

"A scorching hot, gritty and remarkably tense thriller." - author Paul D. Brazill

"You may not get much sleep, but it will be well worth it, I promise you!" -

"Julia Madeleine is a name to watch, and NO ONE TO HEAR YOU SCREAM is a winner." - author Allan Leverone

"No One To Hear You Scream by Julia Madeleine is a fantastic thrill-ride of suspense and drama that will leave you breathless! ...I look forward to seeing what's next from this incredible author!" - M. Vasquez: Life In Review

"I definitely recommend this book with highest of 5 stars! You'll be amazed at the way this book leaves you feeling.....fearful, thrilling, heart pounding....and so much more. I love the writing style of this author, and I am hoping beyond hope, that she will have another thrilling novel just like this one soon!" - Reviews By Molly

Tesla Still Looking - Flash Fiction by Julia Madeleine...

Times Square (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The Hotel

By Julia Madeleine

Room 3327. I knew something was wrong as soon as I stepped inside. It was in the very structure of the room. Something about it felt odd. A jagged sensation like a low volt of electricity passed through me for a brief moment. I hoisted my luggage onto the bed. I went to the window and pushed open the blinds. It had turned dark outside, ominous clouds swallowing the sun. Thirty-three floors below, yellow taxis crawled the streets like shiny beetles. I cracked open  the window, let some warmth into the air-conditioned chill, the sounds of New York city, and the smell of rain.

Behind me, someone cleared his throat. I spun around to see a tall man standing in front of the bed with a gaunt pasty face. Hair the colour of ashes. He gazed at me with wet eyes like an old dog. And yet there was a smile in them.

“You might enjoy feeding the pigeons while you’re here, Miss,” he said, his voice as dry as dead leaves blowing in the wind. “There’s plenty of them in the park.”

“Thanks,” I said. I hadn’t seen him when I checked in. He hadn’t helped me with my bags. He stood there expectantly in a black suit that hung limp on his spindly body, as if waiting for a tip. Who the hell was this guy?

“Have a pleasant stay.” He bowed, actually bowed. Then he turned and left. I crossed the room, locked the door behind him.

I was tired and had an early day in the morning with numerous homeland security officials. So I had a bath, watched some TV, read for a few minutes and then turned out the lights. I fell into a deep sleep only to be woken up shortly after by a dull thumping. Was someone at the door? I turned on the lamp and stepped out of bed. I looked through the peephole. The hall was empty. I went back to bed, turned out the light. Drifting on the edge of sleep, disconnected images and thoughts flashing in my mind. Then a voice. A man’s voice. Yelling from far away it seemed.

“My papers! I can’t find my papers! They’ve stolen them!”

Was I dreaming? I heard the door slam. My door. I turned on the light and stumbled out of bed, sleep pulling at my limbs. The deadbolt was locked. There was a strange ringing in my ears. My vision narrowed. A charged feeling cut through me. I turned the lock and swung open the door. There at the end of the hallway. The man in his black suit, turning around a corner. What the hell was happening?

The next day, I spent the afternoon in meetings, fighting jetlag, a migraine and a sense of foreboding that hovered over my shoulder like a shadow. I navigated my way around unfamiliar streets and made it back to the hotel by dusk. An old woman with black eyes, magnified by cat-eye glasses,  turned to gawk at me in the lobby. She sat in a chair, a wooden cane propped up next to her. The rest of the lobby seemed to be abandoned.

“Have a pleasant stay,” she said to me in a shaky voice as I passed, her words echoing across the lobby. That was the same thing the old man said to me yesterday. I thought of that voice, waking me from sleep, screaming at me.

“He check out in 1943, you know?” the old bat said.

“What? Who do you mean?” I asked, turning to her.

“The man who lived in your room,” she said, a lopsided grin stretching across her wrinkled face. Her eyes behind her glasses didn’t at look me. They looked in two different directions. I wonder how she could even see. She looked half mad. “He was here for ten years.”

“What are you talking about? What man?” I took a step toward her, studying those crazy eyes.

“He made a death ray machine.”

Now I knew she was loony tunes. She was probably some homeless crazy they let hang around once in a while out of pity. Maybe gave her the odd cup of coffee and a sandwich. She  looked harmless enough.

“They stole his papers. After he died. The plans for the death ray. They were stolen.”

I felt my jaw drop open as I gazed at her, the echo of the man’s voice waking me from sleep. “My papers! I can’t find my papers! They’ve stolen them!” It was then I noticed what was in her lap. A fat gray pigeon. She was stroking it like a cat.

“There’s a plaque right on the door. Did you not look at it?”

I sighed and scanned the lobby. Where the hell was everyone? Earlier the place was crackling with life, Ethel Merman playing from the speakers above. Now it was like a morgue. The hairs on my arms prickled. I turned and hurried toward the elevators. Static electricity zapped my finger as I hit the button.

I took deep breaths as the elevator lifted me, it’s mechanisms whirring and bumping inside the walls. It made a soft ding and the doors parted on the 33rd floor. I dragged myself down the carpeted hall, thinking a hot bath might take the tension out of my muscles. I took the key from my pocket and looked at the plaque on the door of room 3327 for the first time. There was a picture of him on the plaque. A younger picture. But it  was the same man. The same smile in his eyes. The man who’d yelled at me during the night about his stolen papers. Nikola Tesla.

Related articles

• The Lost Papers of the Tesla Death Rays

Julia Madeleine's Concerns for Time Results in Dusting Off Copy of Covey's Guidance...

Stephen Covey at the FMI Show, Palestrante on June 22, 2010 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Since I started this blog just last month and signed up for Twitter, I'm amazed at how much I'm enjoying blogging and tweeting. I feel like a kid with a new toy. I'm a little late to the game I know, but I've always been the last one to jump on a bandwagon. Let all the guinea pigs go first and then I'll decide, that's my attitude. Same thing when it comes to upgrading my technology. If it wasn't for my husband I'd still be using a VCR. But, when it comes to all the social media I do notice one drawback. Between the blogging, tweeting, making new friends, interacting with other writers, bloggers, book reviewers, and book lovers, I notice how much it's cutting into my writing time. How is a writer suppose to balance it all?

I'm also fortunate enough to have the opportunity to do book reviews for a local paper in Mississauga. This also just started last month, and I'm really excited about it. So with reading those books I'm reviewing, plus the ones I read just for myself, and all the social media vying for my time, I've only managed to write maybe three short stories. That's all the fiction  writing I've done. I haven't even looked at the new manuscipt that I'm working on (well, not working on is what it really is) nor have I done any rewrites for the sequel to my first novel,Scarlet Rose, that I've got coming out later this year. And then of course there's work. Don't forget work, making money to pay the electricity bill which fuels the laptop and the writing addiction. And there's the housework, the dust-bunnies that need sweeping before they grow teeth and eat the pets, the leaning towers of dishes and pots and pans filling the kitchen counter on any given day. The mountains of laundry waiting to be done, clogging the floorspace as if a stuff-bomb exploded. And there's exercise to think about too.

I wish I could hire somebody to take my body out jogging while I sit here and get some writing done. I really think the one thing that a writer needs to ensure that the writing gets done, is a maid. Yes, a maid. Not just any maid. Not just one of those maids that comes in once or twice a week for half an hour. Who writer's really need is Alice from the Brady Bunch, the live-in housekeeper. She cooks, she cleans, she takes care of the kids, she's always there to lend a hand. Okay...I'm dreaming. I know. So how does a writer balance it all? What are the tools for success?

In two words, I believe, it's time management.

Stephen Covey's book First Things First is the best book I ever read on time management. Not that I read a lot of books on the subject. But the information and skills he suggests are nothing short of miraculous. I'll have to dust off my copy.

The one thing I try to do is multi-task when I can. I listen to audiobooks when I work out. And recently I've started tweeting when I'm sitting on the excercise bike. I also listen to audiobooks when I grocery shop. I do my phone calling in the car (hands free ofcourse). I try to cook more casseroles and use my crock-pot for cooking dinner. It's always nice to come home to the smell of dinner cooking. I usually make a batch of soup on Sundays for lunch during the week as well as a pot of pasta sauce which I freeze in small portions. Fortunately my daughter is now a teenager and needs less of my time than when she was small. She does enjoy cooking so now and then she'll make dinner, however, cleaning up afterward is another story.

I wonder too, if men who write have an easier time of it. Typically, even though most women hold down full time jobs, they are the ones who do the majority of cooking and cleaning. That's how it is in my house. Although, my husband takes on all the traditional male jobs like taking out garbage, fixing stuff around the house, shoveling snow, cutting grass, etc. He does occasionally help with the dishes.

So, as a busy writer with a job, a family who needs attention, a house and pets to look after, as well as other obligations one has, how do you balance it all? Is there something you've discovered that works? That enables you to do everything you want, or at least have time for all the important things in your life? Do you get up an hour or two earlier in the mornings to get your writing fix? Have you given up a hobby you enjoy to have time for your writing? Or have you managed to find your own personal Alice? Please share your thoughts and ideas for any time management techniques you've learned. 

(used with permission of JM)

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• Swain, Maass, Covey and the M/M writer...
• Covey on Goal Execution
• Superwriterwoman/ And Now the How-to, Part 2 of A Writer's Attempt at Time Management
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• A Management in a Minute Book Overview of The Seven Habits of Highly Efficient People by Stephen Covey

Would love to hear your thoughts while I'm visiting!

                           Julia

Spotlighted Author Julia Madeleine Starts Her Blog Tour....

Reblogged!


April 16th: Cafe of Dreams - book review
April 18th: Life In Review - book review
April 19th: Daz's Place - interview
April 23: Psycho Noir - interview
April 26th: Crime Fiction Lover - book review
April 27th: Jersey Girl Book Reviews - book review and guest post
April 30th/May1st: Musings of an All-purpose Monkey - book review and guest post
May 1st: Chin Wag At The Slaughterhouse - interview
May 4nd: Limerence Magazine - book review
May 7th: Lynnette's Book World - book review
May 10th: The Eclectic Reader - book review and book giveaway 
May 12th: Booksie's Blog - book review
May 14th: The Road To Here - book review
May 14th: Let’s Book It - book review 
May 15th: Book Junkie - book review
May 16th: Book Reader's Heaven - book review and guest post
May 21st/May 22nd: Colloquium - book review and guest post
May 28th: My Life In Stories - book review, guest post, and ebook giveaway
Unscheduled Apperences: Ginger Nuts of Horror - book review
I Meant To Read That - book review
Dead End Follies - book review

Author’s Bio:

Julia Madeleine is a thriller writer and tattoo artist living in the Toronto area with her husband and teenaged (future tattooist) daughter. For a year she lived in the country on a 30-acre property in the middle of nowhere which became the inspiration for her novel, No One To Hear You Scream. Find out more about her books at www.juliamadeleine.com


Reviews of Prequel and The Truth About Scarlet Rose will appear here at BRH on May 16th...