Today I’m delighted to revisit my Five on Friday interview with Mollie Blake which was first posted in September 2018. Mollie writes adult-themed stories, filled with exciting romance and laced with suspense. Her steamy reads are all branded A Cheshire Love Story. The post has been brought up to date to include Mollie’s latest publications.
Over to Mollie:
I’m just a regular mum of one son and wife of one husband living in the heart of Cheshire. In a former life, I worked as the finance director for an international company, so I’m a bit of a latecomer to writing. But I don’t regret venturing from analysing figures in spreadsheets to creating steamy scenes for my characters between the bedsheets.
While striving to be recognised as an author, I was delighted to get a contract with an American publisher and went on to be accepted as a member of the International Thriller Writers group and the Romantic Novelists’ Association.
My first books are filled with provocative romance and laced with suspense. Although the early ones are more than a little hot , I have begun to write contemporary romance suspense which won’t singe the pages or set your kindle on fire. Hopefully though, my happy ever afters will still make you feel warm on the inside
When I’m not writing, I love to walk Pepper, our Newfoundland, with my husband, and occasionally talk to my son. If I’m lucky, he talks back. I’m also guilty of a love of reading, swimming, fast cars, Prosecco and chocolate, and plagued with an inability to cook well, but I try.
Which five pieces of music/songs would you include in the soundtrack to your life and why?
Titanium – Sia. For me it represents having strength & resolve to overcome negativity.
Always look on the bright side of life – Monty Python. When life gets you down this is a good thing to remember.
The Chain – Fleetwood Mac. I just love the thrill of it, not to mention the link with cars.
Hustler – Josef Salvat. I came across this track after I had written Keeping You, & the words resonated so much with my hero, Lawrence Bane. The cover for Hustler is very erotic. I have since gone on to love everything Josef does.
Old Shep – Elvis Presley. My dad loved Elvis, and had a dog called Shep. Captivates family, childhood memories and pets.
What five things (apart from family and friends) would you find it hard to live without.
My car. A Bentley Continental V8 GT
My piano, which I still play abysmally but I love the challenge of trying to get better.
My MacBook Pro. Mainly used for writing but also connecting on social media.
My wedding and engagement rings.
Pepper, our Newfoundland. A relatively newcomer to our lives, I would not want to be without her.
Give five pieces of advice to your younger self?
Have a bit more patience and you may make fewer mistakes. But I guess it’s part of our huge learning curve.
Be careful which friends you take along the way. I have lost some and I wish I hadn’t.
Make a plan to visit places in the world. Before you know it they can drift out of your reach.
Be more of a positive parent. I missed that post-natal course because I had to go back to work. I apologise to my son.
Don’t worry that everyone doesn’t like you. I don’t like everyone so we’re quits.
Tell us five things that most people don’t know about you
I love superheroes. My favourites are Spiderman and Batman. One of the best things about having a son is I get to watch all the films and cartoons as part of “family” time.
As a challenge for my fortieth year, I passed my motorcycle test and owned a Suzuki SV400. I have never ridden since having my child and I miss it.
For another challenge I cycled the Manchester 100 miles. Twice, but two years apart! It’s on our list to do again.
I love driving and am guilty of singing in the car. If you pass me and I have an odd expression on my face, that’s why. Unless I’ve caught my wheel on the curb and then I’m furious!
I have recently experienced a low period in my life, for no major reason. Never being one to be down very much, this has given me a greater awareness of the cruelty of depression. I was not depressed, but I was not myself and I hated that feeling. The negativity weighed down on me as I believed at the time that I would never be myself again. I was lucky and am in a much better place now. My heart goes out to people who live with the illness and I wish them comfort and peace.
Tell us five things you’d still like to do or achieve.
Travel and see more of the world. We have been States’ side, Canada & Peru, and Africa. Going East this year to Singapore & Borneo. Must visits include China, Australia, Alaska.
Write a best seller, one of my books reached No 29 in erotic thrillers, but that was a while ago.
Play the piano well enough to take the headphones off.
Sail through the Panama Canal
Go to the ballet in Moscow
Mollie’s Books
(NB This post features Affiliate links from which I earn a small commission on qualifying purchases)
An Unconventional Affair : A Risk Worth Sharing (Book 2)
Where does a man turn when he is denied the love of the only woman he wants? Where does a man turn when the woman he loves has given her heart to another?
This second part of An Unconventional Affair finds Barrington Stone on the other side of the world working in Australia for a year. Tee has ended their affair, but for Barrington, it was never over. He can’t wait for the year to pass so he can go back to her. However, after a drunken encounter with a woman he has never met before and never wants to see again, his life is changed forever. How can he possibly leave Australia, now that he has a daughter?
After accepting that Barrington won’t be coming back to the UK, Tee rekindles her relationship with charming-yet-unconventional Sebastian Chandler, owner of a motorsports racetrack. Although living with Sebastian is ‘complicated’ and life for the couple isn’t perfect, they are settled, and Tee is happy.
But everything changes when Barrington returns. Tee’s heart is in turmoil, and Sebastian is afraid he will lose the woman he loves. As the plot thickens and twists unravel, Barrington must decide if there is a risk worth sharing
An Unconventional Affair : Email Indulgence (Book 1)
A high-powered lawyer. A brilliant student of mathematics. Is it so…inappropriate?
Tranquility ‘Tee’ Hammond is head of Solomon’s law firm in Manchester. Having escaped a violent husband, with a son she was really too young to have had, her life revolved around her work. There was little time for anything else, and she didn’t want anything else. When she was inclined to treat herself to a little sexual pleasure, she engaged the services of Email Indulgence, an exclusive club—one email for one night of sex with a man she didn’t know and didn’t need to see again. For her it was enough. But her life was about to be changed by her son’s friend from university. Fifteen years her junior, Barrington Stone is determined to woo Tee into an Unconventional Affair
When a young girl is killed, Tee will go to any lengths to get justice for the mother. When all is revealed, she refuses to destroy Barrington’s future. But is she wrong for once?
Guiltless
Successful in business, failing in love, one woman needs a new challenge. But how far is she prepared to go?
Managing director of her own successful fashion house, Lauren Chandler should have everything going for her. But at twenty-nine, she finds herself single again, and bored. Seeking a new challenge in her life, under the guise of saving her company money, Lauren embarks on a mission to model their latest range of lingerie herself. She just needs a photographer.
When a certain Byron Lord makes an unusual proposal, Lauren is adamant he won’t win the contract, but she’s going to get far more than she bargained for…
Keeping You
His past haunts him. Revenge drives him. Can her love save him?
After a chance meeting in a bookshop, young Suzy Harper is engaged by multi-millionaire, Lawrence Bane, to work on translating a French document. They embark on an intense relationship, but he is surrounded by mystery and shame as demons from his past threaten to destroy everything he has worked for, including her love for him.
This exciting, erotic, romantic thriller traces the increasingly intense and tender relationship between the inexperienced Suzy and her wealthy, troubled lover, Lawrence. There are two obsessions in Lawrence’s life—his passion for Suzy and his drive for revenge against the gangland boss who murdered his best friend.
Will Suzy be strong enough to accept Lawrence for the man he is? Will Lawrence trust the woman he loves enough to reveal to her his darkest secrets? Will their love survive the challenges that lie ahead? Find out in this novel from A Cheshire Love Story series by Mollie Blake.
If you loved Ivy Smoak, Louise Bay, JS Scott you will love Keeping You
The American Best Man
A best man with a secret, and a reluctant bridesmaid. An unlikely mix for an intense affair.
In this novella, Emily Moorcroft is the sceptical bridesmaid at her best friend’s wedding, and Emily is compelled to ask if the bride really knows who she is marrying. Emily’s concerns grow when she suspects the newly-weds friendship with their best man is ‘very close’. The bride is her best friend! It’s not right that the best man seems to know her better than Emily does. Jealousy rears its head, and painful memories threaten to spoil the day for Emily Moorcroft.
Why does the best man know more than the bridesmaid? And why can the bridesmaid tell the best man things she has never told anyone else?
Jill's Book Cafe 
The musical selections never fail to amaze me–Elvis–and Old Shep…gees, the tears
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It really pulls at the heart strings. I remember hearing it as a child and found it so upsetting.
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