Happy birthday SLIPSTREAM (& Simone Soltani's RIDE WITH ME!)

two hot new bombshells are linking up

One month ago today, I woke up to my Instagram crashing. Just like, bombing it. Slipstream was out and EVERYONE was posting about it at the same time (thank you), and I thought I was ready for it… but I wasn’t! Nor was my lowly Instagram account, which I think had something like 300 followers this time last year? Which is still a lot for a nobody who was very publicly spinning her own wheels, but things sure have changed. And fast.

And now it’s been a month of Slipstream out in the world! Over on IG, I finally shared that Lilah’s penchant for David Bowie and Space Oddity is, in fact, inspired by my own life. I say finally, because there’s a lot about her and me and where those lines blend that I probably won’t ever share. It’s funny to write a book, full stop. It’s a bit like personifying one of your deepest emotions—for Lilah, her isolation stemming from her neurodivergence (or her perception of the world’s intolerance for it). Then you as a writer throw that anthropomorphized trauma in a backstory blender, send that made-up character on a Journey, and end up with what feels like a younger sibling. Lilah is me the way a sister would be. We share blood, but she always surprised me with what came out of her mouth.

Back to Space Oddity. I went to public school outside Chicago for most of my life, where I was blissfully one of thousands of kids, largely invisible with my knee-high Converse and spandex Hot Topic shirts. Like many a youth on tumblr in the early 2010s, I went through a rough period with my mental health, and there is just this really clear stint of time in my memory where I’d sit on the glossy tile floor before class, headphones in, and listen to Space Oddity on loop. It was exactly how I felt. Alien. Disconnected. Alone. Planet Earth is blue, and there's nothing I can do.

Even though I was diagnosed with ADHD in middle school, I wouldn’t reckon with what that meant beyond grades until my late twenties. How neurodivergence shapes us from our earliest moments, makes us Google why do I feel like an alien, collects into this pressing need to press ourselves smaller, quieter, “better.” If you don’t speak, then you’re not weird. But if you don’t speak, nobody knows who you are. It’s a bad game. Clearly rigged from the start.

There was a part of me that, when I first started writing fiction again in 2020, wanted to do it alone for that exact reason. As if producing an overnight write-drunk-edit-sober darling would be proof that I was totally, completely better off by myself, take that everyone who left me first, I’m fine!! Only… it takes a village to write a book. And more importantly, the moment you see that village as a writer, that there are thousands of people just like you, writing, editing, publishing, you want to join it.

I’ve been so lucky to meet countless razor sharp and graciously kind authors along the way, one being Simone Soltani, author of the Lights Out series. Or, as I like to call her, Queen of Formula 1 romance. I think I first slipped into Simone’s DMs to send her a George Russell meme and say our books were being published on the same day. And to be honest, Simone absolutely didn’t need to reply to my fangirling. She’s SIMONE SOLTANI.

But she did message me back, and for weeks we’ve been scheming up a plan to celebrate the one month anniversary of Slipstream and Ride With Me being out in the world, because *of course* Simone is also wickedly cool behind the scenes. And since Instagram has been slightly wonky lately, we’ve decided to give away one finished copy of Slipstream and Ride With Me through our Substacks!!

The rules:

• Subscribe to both of our newsletters (Simone Soltani & Madge Maril)

• Like either Simone or I’s posts about this giveaway.

• OR reply to this email if you don’t have a Substack account!

We’ll pick a winner on June 27th and reach out to you via email!*

And here’s why you want to win:

Tbh, I’m assuming that if you’re here, you like Formula 1 romances. And honestly, I bet most of you have already inhaled Ride With Me, but on the off chance this is your first time hearing about it, imagine: Stella, a business owner who’s having a rough time (left at the altar) (maybe ran her mouth online while drunk) (still has to go to her cousin’s bachelorette in Vegas even though she was RECENTLY LEFT AT THE ALTAR). But overall? Doesn’t need a Formula 1 driver in her life. Makes her own money! Will be okay! So when Stella collides with the widely disliked F1 driver Thomas Maxwell-Brown (why are hyphenated names hot), they end up ~taking their minds off their problems~... together. And of course, because it’s Vegas, the two wake up married.

It’s genius. For one, Simone pulls off a modern twist on marriage of convenience, with Stella and Thomas navigating married life and “my wife” like every great historical romance couple who came before them. I often think about how F1 romance runs parallel to historical romance in the sense that these 20 multimillionaire athletes are modern dukes, and I adore that Simone gave Stella power and agency in her own right, shifting the focus to the characters’ true emotional connection. And also, Simone’s books are just fun. Whereas I linger in the alien of it all, Simone writes the bounciest, steamiest summer-y F1 romcoms, and I don’t want to spoil the book more than I maybe already have but just know—you all will have so much fun with Ride With Me.

Thank you Simone for being the coolest. I love every pic of our books out in the world together and sharing shelves with you. <3

In closing, a few newsletter-y things before I leave you:

• I’m returning to Wild Geese Bookshop on July 15 to help celebrate Alexis Daria’s new romance Along Came Amor!! I truly can’t believe I get to be Alexis’ conversation partner AND hype up Along Came Amor irl. (It’s so good.)

• If you’re in the Bloomington, Minnesota area, have you heard about Sports Romance Con yet?! On March 13 – 16, 2026? You probably want to grab a ticket asap! Wink wink. Nudge nudge.

• Last call to order a personalized copy of Slipstream from Downbound Books!! If you’ve been waiting, now is the time–Downbound has done so much to support our little community. <3 (Also, they’re raising money to support Transform Cincy this month. Add a $5 Downbound Pride Pack to your order & they’ll donate that $5 to Transform PLUS an additional 10% of your total spend.)

And with that, until next time—

Don’t forget that there’s always something we can do.

MM

*No purchase necessary. Open to U.S. residents only. Must be 18 years or older to win. Void where prohibited. Sweepstakes is not sponsored, endorsed, or associated with Substack, Instagram, or Meta.