Today we interview Molly Fader about her latest book, LADY X, which will be available on July 14. Listeners will enjoy our interview with Molly. She is a very accomplished writer. She’s the author of four novels, including THE MCAVOY SISTERS BOOK OF SECRETS which is about two sisters from a small Pennsylvania hometown! Writing under the pseudonym, Molly O’Keefe, Molly Fader is the USA Today Bestselling author of over 50 contemporary romances. She lives in Toronto, Ontario with her husband, two kids and rescue dog. And Molly is a podcaster. Her podcast is called Day Drinking with Authors. She interviews authors, and others in the industry, about their recent releases, inspirations, and what’s happening next in publishing. And do it all while having a cocktail. Or three. She says! Molly says she brought cocktails for us! She started her Day Drinking with Authors podcast during COVID when everyone was desperate to connect. Nancy mentions that she enjoyed Molly’s recent episode with Amy Clark about summer reading options. Amy has her own podcast called the Book Gang. Linda mentions that the Front Porch Book Club was also a year after COVID started. Molly says COVID was a weird difficult time, but for readers, it was a rich time. She fell back in love with reading. Nancy said having a child home from college also made it rich. Molly said she had a teenager and a younger daughter during that time and it delayed the “teenagerness” a little. Molly says her reading tastes are varied. She always has three books on the go: an audiobook, a paperback, and a book on her e-reader. Molly grabbed her current paperback read, Kate Hilton’s CITY OF THE MUSE. She says the historical information feels very real. There’s an Egyptian dig, a murder, and it is very fascinating. Nancy asks whether Molly, like Julia in LADY X, has a researcher, a producer, and an engineer for her podcast. Molly says she wishes she did! She had a great musician friend who wrote the theme song and she occasionally leans on a friend who is good at editing. Molly says being a podcaster is fun. Molly got started writing when she read L.M. Montgomery’s EMILY OF NEW MOON where she read about a character that was an author. She read a lot of romance novels after a close high school and later a college friend died because she craved happy endings. She thought to herself that if she could bring love to others through writing romance novels, that would be a worthy calling. She took a writing class taught by an editor at Harlequin and she found writing to be a great escape from early motherhood. She wrote, too, for Bantam, and did some self-publishing, too. Love is a big, transformative emotion that can change a person’s concept of who they are. Nancy notes that Molly has written her books under several names. Molly says Harlequin gave her the Molly O’Keefe name. Her more explicit romance author name is M. O’Keefe. Since her novels are so different, she knew she needed to use a different author name. Molly had to find a new agent when she moved to writing novels because her romance agent did not want to move forward with them. They’re still good friends, but it was hard! She found a new agent to sell LADY X. Mollys says her inspiration for LADY X was some of the anger of watching powerful men getting away with abuse. At about the same time, her daughter experienced harassment from a classmate and refused Molly’s advice to ignore him. Instead, her daughter and her friends advocated for themselves to their school’s administration and got him the help he needed. Molly was embarrassed by her lack of aid. Taylor Swift’s song, Vigilante Shit, became a spark for the book because it led her to making the characters vigilantes. Nancy tells Molly and she and Linny grew up all around Pennsylvania. In LADY X, Margot and Julia grew up in Pennsylvania and in THE MCAVOY SISTERS BOOK OF SECRETS, the sisters are from a small Pennsylvania hometown. Nancy asks what Molly’s connection to PA and sisters is. She says she always wanted a sister, but doesn’t have one. Pittsburgh is where her father grew up and her grandparents lived as she was growing up, so it felt like a special place and a place of stories. Nancy says she and Linny liked Molly’s portrayal of gritty New York in the late 1970 and early 1980. Nancy and Linda explain they visited New York during that time period, basically on unchaperoned school trips where they’d be dropped off in the morning in Times Square and be told to come back at midnight to drive home. Molly is hilariously aghast and says that would never happen today. Linda explains it was public school. Molly’s aunt was an artist in Brooklyn so that became an inspiration. She also watched a documentary about New York City during the summer of 1977 which helped her further figure out the plot. Then, during COVID, she took some Zoom walking tours of New York! Linda says she and Nancy really liked the story of the girls in 1977. LADY X features a lot of men in positions of privilege and power behaving very badly toward women. At first, it’s difficult for many of these women to stand up for themselves, but when they found courage among other women, there’s no stopping them! Linny asks Molly why this was a dynamic she wanted to explore. Molly says those friendships in the early 20s are very important and sort of imprint upon your life. She created characters that would be impacted by one another because of their love for each other. Nancy tells Molly that her portrayal of Ginger and her roommates as older women was beautiful. Molly’s writing about them brought tears to her eyes. Molly said she wrote multiple scenes to give the readers a catharsis that is realistic. Linda says she and Nancy also appreciated the contemporary story and the bonds they had. In both the 1977 and the contemporary stories, there are times that the women aren’t supportive of each other. Molly agrees and says she wanted her characters to have friction with the different ways they look at the world and will, or will not, accept. Nancy says that for her one of the most heartbreaking betrayals was when Ginger sent Faye to Shane’s office for a job interview at the Orbit Club. Ginger has not recognized the harm that was done to her and can’t see how she is compromising her friend. Molly says perpetrating a system that hurts women is something women are responsible for, too. Molly says that is how she felt about her lack of support when her daughter was facing her harassment. Mollys tells us that she has been enjoying promoting the book and talking about the experience of women who have read the book and tell her that it resonates with them. She is amazed and humbled. Linny says she really liked the last chapter and found it hopeful that perhaps things are changing, though it’s frustrating to see a resurgence about some of these issues. Linny remembers being at the Women’s March in DC when she met some older women using walkers who said they couldn’t believe they had to come back to DC to march, again, to fight the same battles. Molly says not everyone can be Faye and Skye, but we can support one another. Nancy says she loves Todd and how much of an ally he was. Molly said her high school homecoming date was Andy. Andy married Todd. She always names an incredible ally or person after Todd. Todd has read LADY X and loves his part in the book. Molly says her next novel is set in 1980s Nashville with an all-woman country music band. The story, unlike LADY X, doesn’t have a dual timeline. The story is full of the 1980s! Molly says listeners can stay in touch with her on her Instagram, website, and a newsletter. Stop by the front porch next time when we will review RETURNS AND EXCHANGES written by Kayla Rae Whitaker.