My Debut Novel Is Now Available
The Comeback Tour
Hi everyone!
I’m so excited to announce that my debut novel, The Comeback Tour, is NOW AVAILABLE for print and Kindle on Amazon (more outlets coming soon)! The Comeback Tour is the first novel in the Trash the Dress fiction series. Like my memoir, Trash the Dress: Stories of Celebrating Divorce in your 20s, The Comeback Tour will empower women with stories of happily, even after. This book has an ultra fun plot and pays tribute to boy bands we know and love. Read on to learn more!
We’ve all fantasized about dating our favorite boy band member and for one young divorced woman, that teenage dream comes true—but is falling in love with the “bad boy” whose posters lined her bedroom walls and now needs her to redeem his reputation worth the consequences?
Cailin McCall spent her teenage years chasing boy bands, particularly 5 Leo Hearts. After she finds herself divorced, and recently fired from her unfulfilling job at age 29, Cailin vows to stop settling and start living life to its fullest. When her friend offers her a job working as a music publicist, Cailin figures she has nothing left to lose…except she ends up risking her credibility, vows to herself, and her heart.
Jax Slater has been dubbed the “bad boy” of 5 Leo Hearts, a boy band worshiped by millions of fans worldwide. He garnered a reputation for his womanizing ways until he settled into a relationship with a female pop star. When she broke his heart, he retreated from the public eye for a decade until now: the release of his solo album and tour. He's determined to break out of all stereotypes, show he's a true artist who can write hit songs and play guitar, and find lasting love with a normal girl… except the one he wants is his new publicist and she’s off-limits.
Once they start working together, Jax can’t help but fall back into his flirty ways with Cailin. With years of built up yearning for Jax lingering, Cailin can’t resist. They agree to keep their romance a secret and Cailin finds herself in pinch-me moments that seem too good to be true. And they just might be.
After making it through one crisis after another, the pair are caught off guard and their road to romance comes to a screeching halt. Cailin realizes that she might not really know Jax after all. Jax must confront the fact that his reckless past might be catching up to him.
Can Jax give the biggest performance of his life, and remind Cailin that their love is off the charts?
BEHIND THE SCENES OF THE BOOK
While watching Big Time Rush—a group my daughter and I discovered after binge watching the TV show—I looked around the stadium at the 16,000 people in the crowd and thought to myself, "This is why I wrote my book.” For so many of us, boy bands are our first loves. Posters of our favorite member line our bedroom walls, we dream of meeting them, and fantasize about being the girl in the song. Yet, I haven’t seen a tribute to them in novel form. It was time for someone to capture this and it was gonna be me. Cue *NSYNC.
My love of boy bands begins with New Kids on the Block. I was in third grade when the group first came out, I saw them in concert, and named my pet goldfish after the members. By high school, I stood outside TRL with signs and gift baskets for Backstreet Boys, covered *NSYNC as a writer for Teen People magazine, and met 98 Degrees when the guys signed CDs at a mall. I saw Five, LFO, walked a mile barefoot with Hanson (I don’t count Hanson as a boy band but they fall into the category of bands we crush on), and traveled to New York City’s biggest record store in Times Square just to buy import CDs from UK acts Boyzone, Take That’s Robbie Williams, and Another Level. These adventures filled my youth with cherished memories and provided me with a soundtrack that lifted me up no matter what trauma was going on in my life. Boy bands are happiness. Throughout this book, there are hidden references to these groups and more. I hope you catch some of them and smiled.
I wrote my original draft of this book in three months, but it took much longer for me to go back and really figure out how to weave in the Trash the Dress divorce support group and pay tribute to the awe-inspiring community of women we have. All the chats in the story are made up, as our real convos in the group are top secret. It was important for me to have my main character be a young divorced woman because this area is underrepresented in romance novels and there are really amazing stories of happily even after. The Comeback Tour is the first book in my Trash the Dress fiction series and I am excited to tell the next character’s story of finding love and living her dream post-divorce.
Self-publishing this book brought creative passion back to my life. Thank YOU so much for buying this book. The real work has just begun for me and I’d really appreciate it if you can leave me an online review on Amazon or Goodreads and write a social media post and tag me in an effort to raise awareness of my book and announce me as a new independent fiction author.
I’ll be here, cherishing moments as I listen to my son, Luca, sing along to my favorite songs with me, and searching music videos with my daughter to teach her boy band history. (Fun fact: I taught her the names of every Backstreet Boy when she was one-year old). Sometimes we’ll be driving in the car and my husband, Frank, will sing along to a BSB song and I’ll yell at him for ruining my vibe, but it goes to show the impact of boy bands. Everyone secretly likes at least one song. When you close this book, I hope you play a song from your favorite boy band, raise the volume, sing along, and forget about everything else for a few minutes.
For all those that have a dream, take this as your sign to go for it. Start now. You don’t need anyone’s approval to live your best life. It’s not going to be easy, but it will be worth it. If you can make a positive impact on just one person’s life, you are successful. I took a risk starting Trash the Dress and each time someone writes me to tell me how my book helped them through one of the darkest times of their life, it brings tears to my eyes. By sharing my story and writing a book (one of my dreams), I have met so many special women. I hope this Trash the Dress fiction series continues to build on that legacy and by reading along, you’re inspired to create your own.
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Always grateful,
Joelle
Blog and Books: www.joellesperanza.com
Instagram: @thejoellesperanza, @trashthedressbook @thecomebacktourbook
This is great! Congrats!!! Excited to dive in.