'I swapped nursing for erotic fiction - but I won't let mum read my books'

Sophie said: "I don't allow my mum and dad to read the books."

"They are so proud and they tell everyone about the books, but I am like: 'please, do not read them'."

Growing up in Bellshill, Lanarkshire, Sophie had a love for writing.

"At school I used to write funny poems when I should have been concentrating in class, and would send them to my friends," she recalled.

As a teenager she considered a career in journalism, but later lost interest in her school studies.

Sophie admitted: "I have got a really short attention span.

"I was too busy hanging around with my sister and cousins who were all older and had left school."

She quit school at 16 but, encouraged by her mum, entered further education and worked towards a diploma in performing arts.

"It was just fun, though I did learn how to write a script," she said.

"I was 16-17 and I never thought I would use those skills again."

Within a few years Sophie was a teenage single mum.

She had the first of her two daughters at 19, and the second when she was 20.

To help support her young family, Sophie decided to follow in her mum and dad's footsteps and went into nursing.

"I went to university when my youngest was three weeks old," said Sophie.

She has since clocked up 10 years with NHS Lanarkshire as a renal nurse working with kidney disease patients.

Sophie is currently on a break from nursing to focus on the podcast and promoting a new book, but plans to return to the profession.

It was while working as a nurse during the Covid pandemic that her life took an unexpected turn.

Along with many other health professionals, she was required to attend mandatory wellness sessions.

They were intended to offer a release from working under the pressures of the global health crisis.

Staff were encouraged to explore new interests or rekindle a passion for old ones.

"Everyone else had all these great things they were doing in their spare time, while I was using it to lie on the couch watching Netflix most nights," said Sophie.

"Then I said to myself 'look, let's get a grip here', and I started writing.

"I never thought I was good enough at it, but wanted to do something for myself."

In a single night she mapped out the basic story of what later became her debut novel.

Sophie said: "I just took the worst dating stories I had heard from my friends and the girls in the staffroom. There are couple of my own in there too.

"I fictionalised the story to make sense of it all.

"I thought I would send it to my friends as Christmas presents."

But Sophie took the plunge and self-published A Glasgow Kiss online, with no expectations of what would happen next.

"Literally overnight it was number one on the Amazon charts. It just completely blew up," she said.

Book deals followed, and this week she released her fifth novel - The Dicktionary Club.

It is based on a real-life phenomenon where women meet in groups on social media to discuss whether they are dating the same man.