Arriving at FBF: The Thunder Girls by Melanie Blake

Melanie Blake rifles through The Thunder Girls to the back cover and holds up the author photo for me: "I mean, people will take a look at this picture and say to themselves, ‘Look at this woman, she doesn’t take any shit.’"

We are in swanky London hotel bar, at "mimosa o’clock", and Blake looks just as glam as she does in her author pic. And after just a few minutes in her company, I realise she certainly doesn’t take any shit. But the agent-turned-author is being a bit mischievous, and she is doing this in trying to explain the context for the success of her first novel, which topped the Kindle charts and débuted in the Mass-Market Fiction top 10 on its release in July. The hugely fun book centres around the titular Thunder Girls, a 1980s girl band who broke up at the height of their fame after one of the group betrayed the others to go on to solo success, ruining the careers of her bandmates in the process. Thirty years on—after addictions, bankruptcies, breakdowns and divorces—the old record label wants to get the band back together for a huge money-spinning tour. But can the past be put behind them? 

Blake says: "This is escapism—people want to read that right now. I am thinking about my readers who are, for the most part, working-class women like me who want stories about other strong women who have gone through all the trials and tribulations of life and are still standing."

But with a bit of glitz thrown in. Hence the popstar theme in the novel. And the bad-ass, take-no-shit photographs which hark back—consciously and very deliberately—to Jackie Collins and Jacqueline Susann glam.

Lady Boss
Blake is not playing a part, though. She is almost a Jackie Collins character come to life, but one whom Collins’ editor might have asked for redraft on, as Blake’s rags-to-riches story seems a tad too unbelievable. 

Born in Stockport, Greater Manchester, Blake’s life was relatively happy until the age of seven, when her father came home one night and announced he had joined a religious cult. TV, magazines and books (bar the Bible) were banned from the house and Blake’s father gave almost all of his money to his new church. Blake says: "Almost overnight we went from a happy, ‘Coronation Street’-watching family to being dirt poor. We were living on food banks and charity shop clothes."

She struggled for several years and her only escape was books—which she had to read on the sly. She got a library card, and in her local library would hoover up titles by the likes of Collins, Judith Krantz and Shirley Conran: "I read these books when my life was hell and they were able to take me out of it. I think I wanted to read about how these women survive in life."

The moment she turned 16, Blake fled her house, eventually going to London to start a life on her own. Things did not turn around immediately—she was homeless for a time, sleeping in a shed for months. But when she was 19, she landed a job on "Top of the Pops", helping to stage the performances, and her fortunes changed. She loved it, not least because she was music-mad and she got to be up close and personal with many a popstar: "I was 19, I was fearless. So I would go up to some of the stars and chat to them, be direct and honest with them about what was and wasn’t working. I’d tell Westlife that the wind machine didn’t work with the silk shirts they were wearing, or say, ‘Kylie [Minogue], do you know the lighting you’re using is really unflattering?’"

The stars appreciated the straight-talking—as their own minders often stepped carefully around them—so much so that one, Claire Richards from the band Steps, asked Blake to be her manager when she embarked on a solo career. Blake quickly started building a roster of other clients from TV, fashion and music and launched an agency, now called Urban Associates. By 30, the former homeless teen was head of a company turning over £4m a year.

Once is not enough
Books were not the main part of her agency, but Blake has been involved in a number publishing deals for her clients, such as The Nolans singer-turned-TV presenter Coleen Nolan’s memoirs, which were sold to Michael Joseph. It is no surprise, then, that publishers have asked Blake to write her own story: "I’ve been offered six figures, and I mean major six figures, for my autobiography. But I thought, ‘I lived it, I escaped it, I’m not sure I want to relive it.’"

Instead she was moved to write fiction, of the escapist type she turned to as a kid. She actually first started The Thunder Girls almost 20 years ago when she was in the thick of the pop scene. It was after a heartbreak of her own that she decided to pick it up again, and rewrite it from an older woman’s perspective. Obviously, partly this was because she was at a different time of her life, but she is convinced that there is a huge market for stories about, and for, women of this age range. 

Melanie Blake centre at the launch of her novel The Thunder Girls, alongside "Loose Women" stars Coleen Nolan left and Saira Khan

Partially this was from her experience of trying to set up a Nolans reunion tour in late Noughties. She explains: "I went to almost every promoter in Britain and no one would back the tour because it hadn’t really been done before. It was for a market [the promoters] really didn’t understand. It was kind of how the music industry—and to be frank, a lot of our society—relegates and puts middle-aged women to one side. And I said, ‘No, you’re wrong, this is going to be huge.’"

The Nolans and Blake funded the tour themselves, and it turns out she was right. Marketing it squarely at the demographic that grew up with the Nolans during their 1970s and ’80s heyday with the tag line "The Ultimate Girls Night Out!", the entire 23-night tour sold out. 

Part of that experience is why Blake has also adapted The Thunder Girls for the stage, with a well-received sold-out run—starring Nolan and directed by Joyce Branagh, sister of Sir Ken—just completing at the Lowry in Manchester. "We were on at the same time as the Conservative Party conference," Blake deadpans. "I don’t think we had the same audience."

Blake had a two-book, world English-language deal with Macmillan, but she has bought the rights for the second title back as she "wanted to switch gears". Translation rights to The Thunder Girls and the next title are being sold at this year’s Frankfurt Book Fair by The Bks Agency, the firm launched by former Hachette rights director Jason Bartholomew, who also serves as Midas PR c.e.o. There is "serious" film interest in The Thunder Girls, and  a publishing deal for book two is "around the corner". 

The next novel, as yet unnamed, is in its final stages—in fact, Blake has a printed manuscript of it next to her as we talk. It is set around another part of the entertainment world she knows well: the soap opera. It is slightly different in tone, she says. "The first one is full of bitching, the second one is full of bonking. But there is also bitching in book two; the soap world is so ‘All About Eve’ it’s untrue."

Blake has approached the whole publishing experience with a hungry agent’s hustle. She has promoted The Thunder Girls endlessly, even manning the book stall during intermissions of the play to sign books and speak to fans. “I don’t want to be cool, I want to be popular, I want to be read,” she pauses and says with a laugh: “I want to be well thumbed.”