Jade’s debut novel, Golden, explores life after loss. Set in an idyllic beach town on Australia’s East Coast, Golden follows main character, Eddie, as she struggles with friendship, family, and first love. With an upbeat and life-affirming tone, Golden highlights the importance of opening up to the people who love you. 

With a strong sense of place and community, Golden is a heart-warming young adult novel that deals with the growing complexity of Eddie’s life. Is the new boy in town really interested in her? Can Eddie learn to let people in? Teeming with emotional complexities, Golden is sure to keep you hooked to the last page. 

Jade vs. Imposter Syndrome

Jade’s passion for writing was clear throughout our conversation. “I have been writing my whole life. I was always writing when I was a kid and a teenager, and I haven’t stopped since,” says Jade. “I was just writing because I love writing.” 

However, her passion for her craft has been accompanied by a long-standing sense of impostor syndrome. “For a long time, I really just didn’t think that I was any good, and I just sort of was doing it for myself,” Jade explains. 

Imposter syndrome is a feeling of self-doubt about skills or accomplishments. It can make someone blind to all of their achievements despite their success. Impostor syndrome can be informed by experiences of oppression like sexism, racism, or ableism. It can be hard for people struggling with impostor syndrome to believe in themselves. 

“I sort of attempted to be published a couple of times in the past, but I mean very half-heartedly, and as soon as someone rejected me, I was like, ‘oh well, there you go, I’m terrible’,” Jade explains. “I just have a lack of confidence, so it took me a little while to get there.”

Tackling her self-doubt head-on, Jade decided to seriously try to get her books published. “I decided that for the year of 2023, I was going to enter every writing opportunity that I qualified for, and I did,” Jade says. 

Her motto became: “You can’t complain about not winning if you don’t enter.”

“For every single thing, I entered the answer was no. Except for the Text Prize.” Jade says. She was shortlisted for the Text Prize in 2023 and was later offered a publishing deal. Jade persisted, pushing back against her internalised rhetoric, ultimately, allowing her career to flourish. 

Take Home Message from Golden: It’s Important to Talk About the Tough Stuff

Jade’s experience of overcoming her impostor syndrome is connected to her larger mental health journey, a theme very prominent in Golden. Eddie’s struggle with opening up to her family and friends about her experiences of PTSD mirrors the hardship that Jade has gone through. 

“I really understand that Eddie is sort of reluctant to ask for help,” says Jade. Using her experience, she wants to help young people today understand that, “It’s okay to talk about difficult things or to speak difficult things out loud. When I was a teenager, it wasn’t. We didn’t talk about these things, and it was just kept inside, and you just pretended everything was fine.” Wanting to change this narrative and to help young people today, Jade’s novel focuses on the importance of leaning on those you love and finding help. 

“I really am a big fan of talking about these sorts of things. I started therapy in 2018, and I should’ve been in therapy from a very young age. I started anti-depressants at that point, and it was literally life-changing for me. I didn’t know that when I was a teenager that the way I felt was not healthy or normal.” Jade says. She explains that through this novel, “I really would like to destigmatise mental health.” 

Leaning on her personal experience means that this novel is not only healing for Jade and her readers, but it also makes the story of Golden feel real. Jade uses her journey to create nuanced and deep characters, making her novel an incredibly rich read. 

Jade explains that her characters are “tiny little pieces of myself or tiny little pieces of someone I know. I just absorb people a little bit.” Each character in Golden has a distinct personality and purpose. “I imagine the minor characters as if they were the main character, because everyone is the main character of their own story,” she says. 

The reader experiences the novel’s central trauma through the eyes of Eddie; nevertheless, the experiences of her family and friends are equally pivotal and create a full sense of wholeness to the world Jade has created. 

Jade’s passion for writing fills the pages of Golden with a profound zest for life. Her journey with impostor syndrome and her mental health struggles inform the richness of Jade’s writing. Each character feels real, and their distinct journeys throughout the novel are relatable, engaging, and leave the reader with a deep connection to Eddie’s world. 

Golden (2025) is available now through Text Publishing.