Carla Caruso on Second Chance and Giveaway!

We have author Carla Caruso and she will be giving away one eCopy of her SECOND CHANCE to one commenter!

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Over to Carla now...

Back to the summer of 1998

I’ve always called myself a “contemporary” writer, but I’ve just finished a book called Second Chance, which involves time-travel to the 1990s.

I’ve jokingly told people the story is “historical fiction” – even though the start of that particular decade only began 23 years ago. Not exactly medieval!

Still, it did involve similar sort of research. And when you think about, the nineties was a very different world to today. The era was pre-Facebook, pre-iPhones and pre-iPads.

So what did I do for inspiration? First up, I unearthed my old photo albums to remind myself what fashion and makeup I used to wear. I guess you could call the late nineties to early noughties my “heyday”. It’s when I partied every Saturday night, lived for the weekend and spent too much on disposable fashion. So I cringed over pics of myself sporting blood-red Poppy King lippy, way too much chocolate-brown (being the “new black” in the nineties), and midriff tops – all great fodder for my novel.

Next, I bought a stack of nineties magazines from eBay – Cosmopolitan, Woman’s Day, Women’s Weekly and the now defunct New Woman. (Yep, someone still had them gathering dust in their shed…) Cosmo still had similar headlines to today – including “how to keep him hard and happy” – but Sarah Murdoch (then O’Hare) beamed back from the cover rather than a Hollywood star. (Supermodels were big news then.) Former editor Mia Freedman also admitted to being a recovering Spice Girls addict.

WW featured a royal couple on the cover (no big surprise) – Edward and Sophie – while Woman’s Day had Fergie as a columnist. New Woman’s cover star was Geena Davis and had a column on books on the ‘net for the newbies.

Nineties music was my next stop. While typing, I tuned into the digital station, Mix ‘90s, until it drove me slightly batty. Some of the songs made me cringe while others had me fondly “remembering when”. Lastly, I had a nineties movie marathon (though using DVDs instead of videos). I watched everything from Cruel Intentions to Clueless, American Pie and Never Been Kissed, note-taking throughout.

The result? My new novel, Second Chance – and less of a cringe factor about the decade that was essentially my “golden years”. Curious about the plot? Here’s a summary!... 

On the night of her 36th birthday, Flora Brunelli is full of regrets. The celebrations have turned sour and life hasn’t gone according to plan. She wishes she could be 20 again. Then she finds herself zapped back in time, landing in the summer of 1998 when she was 20 years old. The Spice Girls are at the top of the charts and The X-Files is the hit TV show. It’s also the week Flora’s life unravelled. For Flora, this is a chance to change her future: win back the love of her life, stay friends with her former best mate and succeed in landing her dream job. http://www.destinyromance.com/products/9781743480748/second-chance

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