Damaged Beauty: Joey Superstar received a 4+ star review, making it an IndieReader Approved title.
Following find an interview with author Margaret Gardiner.
What is the name of the book and when was it published?
Damaged Beauty: Joey Superstar – 2025
What’s the book’s first line?
They’d driven east along the Côte d’Azur, the endless sky above, the Mediterranean a dirty blue to her right.
What’s the book about? Give us the “pitch”.
Damaged Beauty: Joey Superstar is the first in a series of three Damaged Beauty books about good girls who get damaged and fight back.
Joey has miscarried. Her husband is having open affairs and manipulating her psychologically for reduced alimony. She has a psychotic break and is institutionalized. When she emerges she seeks to recapture her stature as a Superstar. In the quicksand of the next hottest thing, Joey begins to unravel. Her time in The House of Rest has pulled at the string of defective defenses and unhealthy coping so she can no longer escape into sex, drugs and self damage. With a fragile mind she sets out to find a family member, reclaim a lost love, and confront the woman who started her on her path of self destruction.
What inspired you to write the book? A particular person? An event?
Having worked in the fashion and beauty industry as an international cover girl from the age of 16, winning the Miss Universe Pageant as an 18 year old, and subsequently being a fashion editor and entertainment journalist, image, beauty and the damage done to young women on the edge of fame has fascinated me. With a Bachelor of Science in Psychology the effect of female framing, self damage through unhealthy coping patterns and the need to propagate the idea that self love leads to positive personal choices, the book has been a long time brewing.
From Kate Moss who confessed to mental duress after appearing naked on billboards in Calvin Klein ads, to Johnny Depp trashing his hotel room, to Britney Spears repeating a cycle of unhealthy coping behaviors, headlines reinforce the need for conversations. ‘Damaged Beauty: Joey Superstar’ explores the side of fame we know exists but pretend we don’t. It puts you in the headspace of a supermodel whose only value is her appearance, as long as it meets the requirements of the day, or until someone younger and ‘better’ sucks up the flashlight. How do the things people say and do affect a fragile psyche? What’s it like to be the one everyone wants to be? What is it like to be the most desirable woman in any situation and how do you navigate the whirlpool of the red carpet, the cocaine party, the producer who advocates they get a little before they will give a little.
This story regurgitated from my gut. Readers say she’s tricky. You don’t like her – a deliberate choice. When our heroines are perfect it makes our own imperfections less easy to bare. Ultimately, and almost everyone says this, they want to get into the pages and say: Don’t! Don’t do it! They are taken on a poignant ride as Joey breaks and tries to heal.
What’s the main reason someone should really read this book?
Its unexpected and entertaining. Its a fast read. Its constructed like a mystery with circuitous routes, frustration, heartbreak and a desire that Joey survives. This is the first in a three book series and readers want her story to continue. I’m thinking of writing a fourth story, although she appears in all three books. This book has love, addiction, glamour, villains disguised as allies, and a heroine you want to succeed. There are easter eggs that will make you want to reread the book and art references that capture visuals like snapshots.
What’s the most distinctive thing about the main character? Who-real or fictional-would you say the character reminds you of?
She is free, wild, untamed. Also broken, but doesn’t know it. Angelina Jolie in the early part of her career. The model from the 80s, Gia. The physical prototype is Candice Swanepoel.
When did you first decide to become an author?
My first poetry was published when I was 16. Books have consumed my mind since before I can remember. I write compulsively. Its not a decision. I don’t have a choice.
Is this the first book you’ve written?
No. Two non-fiction books on health and beauty.
What do you do for work when you’re not writing?
I’m an entertainment journalist, have a you-tube channel and am mastering the art of social media
How much time do you generally spend on your writing?
Like Joey’s art, writing comes out almost complete. I regurgitate it in my head. I write on scraps, when I’m consumed, grocery receipts, napkins, nothing is safe when an idea births.
What’s the best and the hardest part of being an indie?
Magazines like Vogue and Elle won’t review your work. NPR won’t consider you, even when the theme and pedigree clangs with relevance for this moment in time. They think if you are indie, you are irrelevant and not good. I didn’t know that when I created my business model.
What’s a great piece of advice that you can share with fellow indie authors?
Companies emulate established companies, so you pay them money and they don’t deliver. Don’t ask: Are you the actual (fill in the blank). I did my research and still got taken. I don’t have an audio book because of it.
Would you go traditional if a publisher came calling? If so, why?
My first two books were through traditional publishers and I bought my first homes with the proceeds. I didn’t understand how much work was involved in fighting the tide of ‘no’ that walks hand in hand with being an indie writer. Even good companies like Kirkus phone in independent scripts. I’ve only gotten four and five star reviews from everyone on three continents. The Kirkus reviewer got the facts wrong and missed a key plot point which is covered in a ferocious fight between the main characters and takes up an entire chapter. I felt like they never read the book. Indie writers have no recourse, no protection. While there were positives to the review, that they missed this carefully plotted aspect was soul destroying. Especially when most readers quote the thing they missed as the reason they want a fourth book. It was shoddy and exploitive.
Is there something in particular that motivates you (fame? fortune?)
I love my characters. There is nothing better than falling in love with characters. They have something to say. I want to gift this to the reader, so they are moved and feel, and fight for the characters, but also so they talk about the themes and reflect, so that it maybe changes a personal pattern for the better.
Which writer, living or dead, do you most admire?
Fitzgerald, Hemingway, Carver, Tennessee Williams. Alice Walker. Achebe. And. Enid Blyton for writing books where girls got to be the protagonist in ‘Secret Seven’. ‘Famous Five’ and ‘Mallory Towers’. In my first ten years of life, I saved my pocket money to buy each book in these series.
Which book do you wish you could have written?
Almost anything by Tennessee Williams. He breaks my heart with his female characters.