SOPHIE Gravia had just finished a gruelling 12-hour shift in her department when she received a message from a new celebrity fan, Michelle Keegan. Keegan was sitting on a sunny beach thousands of miles away, reading her latest book.
The single mom of two has insisted on keeping her day function like a NHS nurse in Lanarkshire, despite becoming a bestselling author.
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But as she was on her way At home after a particularly hard day she discovered that Our Girl star Michelle, 37, enjoyed Meet Me in Milan from her lounge chair in Dubai last October.
She says, “I actually had Met Last year I was speaking to my husband Mark Wright at an event in Ingliston and told him I was an author.
“Then, about three weeks later, Micheel was on holiday in Dubai when she slid into my DMs as I was leaving work after a long day – I couldn’t believe it.
“Michelle just texted me saying, ‘I Love your book’ and how hilarious it was. At first I thought, ‘This can’t be THE Michelle Keegan’, then I checked and saw she had over seven million followers on Instagram.
“I emailed my editor about it and she told me that sales had gone down sky “I was so happy that Michelle posted my book on her social media.”
Michelle’s career has also skyrocketed after the success of the Netflix series Fool Me Once, in which she plays widow Maya Stern who is shocked by a photo of her deceased husband captured on her toddler’s nanny cam.
But Sofie got the chance to join Michelle on the streaming network when they wanted her to participate in their reality hit to date series Love is Blind – where single Gentlemen And women get engaged before you meet them future spouses personally.
She laughs: ‘They wanted me to join, but I already have enough time dates it doesn’t matter if you go into it blindly.
“So it wasn’t my cup of tea, but it was Nice be asked.”
Sophie, from Bellshill, Lanarkshire, decided to write about dating during lockdown after splitting from the father of her two daughters.
Her real surname is Grant, but she came up with the pseudonym Gravia by combining the names of her daughters Grace, 12, and Olivia, 14.
Sophie’s first self-published spicy book A Glasgow Kiss came out in 2020 and shot to number one on Amazon’s erotic charts overnight, immediately landing her a four-book contract with publisher Orion.
She followed this up with another hit What Happens in Dubai and Meet Me in Milan, while her latest Hot Girl Summer touches the stores next one week.
Their success has enabled Sophie to purchase a new home and a sleek Mercedes while she has been travelling. holidays four times this year alone.
The 32-year-old says: “My life has changed because I am much better off financially.
“It means I spend more time with the children and I’m going to take five weeks off from work to promote my latest book. I’ve never been able to do that before.”
And despite the move to a new detached house house Sophie now has her own office and still writes the same way she did when she first started.
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She says: “I always write in bed. I’ve tried sitting up at my desk, but it’s too formal for me. I have a nice desktop Mac, but I’ve only opened it twice. My kids use it more to play Robots.
“I’d rather lie in bed relaxed in my pajamas, surrounded by clutter, a can of Eating pattern Irn-Bru and a mega bag of pickled onions, Monster Munch and rubber laces.
“That’s when I’m in the zone. That’s how I wrote my first book A Glasgow Kiss and it just feels weird to try something different.”
However she produces them, her army of readers can’t get enough of the outrageous adventures of its main character – aesthetic nurse Zara Blacksmith.
Sophie’s new book Hot Girl Summer is already on sale at airports ahead of its official release. The last time her publisher did that, her fans made sure to buy cheap flights.
She explains: ‘I got messages from people saying they had bought a £25 one-way ticket to get through security and buy my book.
“It was already sold out at Glasgow Airport. I couldn’t believe the lengths people would go to to get an early copy.”
But it’s not just the airports and beaches where her books keep popping up – as her patients have done reading while she is also working.
She says, “It’s embarrassing when you’re trying to be professional and deal with a situation and then someone asks, ‘Did that really happen in that book, dude?’
“I always warn them that my books are very spicy, but they just say, ‘Oh, that’s nothing – I could tell you a lot more.’ I’ve also had requests from them families to sign books. It’s fun.”
But internet Detectives have also been busy trying to find out who the real Dr. Tom Adams is – known as the Sugar Dad in her first three books.
She says, “There’s one doctor at work who I know really well, and he hasn’t read any of my books, so he doesn’t know how bad this character is.
“But he says to me, ‘I love it — I’ve had so many women contact me and ask if it’s really me.’ And I try to tell him, ‘That’s not right.’ But he doesn’t tell them it’s not him.”
Has the quality of Sophie’s dates improved dramatically since she became a bestselling author?
She laughs: “They’re definitely a lot nicer. I haven’t had any horrible ones lately – no panty sniffles or anything like that.
“But I have enough people telling me about their bad dates to fill a few more books.”
Yet Sophie still has to deal with a lot of ‘creepy men’ messaging her online.
Book ‘research’
SOPHIE says one of the best things about being a bestselling author is being able to travel for research.
The author spent a break in Italy before writing Meet Me In Milan, and visited London before starting work on her latest novel, Hot Girl Summer.
Although she was afraid that after a pub crawl with a lot of drinking she had forgotten more than she had learned.
She explains: “It’s based in London and for research I went there for a weekend with one of my friends – not that I remember much about it.
“We researched all the pubs, which was great for the book, but not so good in terms of remembering all the details. I’m just lucky that I took a lot of photos.”
She adds: “But the new book is about three girls living in London, two of whom are from Glasgow.
“They realize that their lives aren’t going according to plan, so they get together for a high school reunion and decide to have a Hot Girl Summer together.
“They want to get their jobs, their sex lives, everything in order, because when they were younger, they were making all their plans together, life was great. So they’re just trying to get everything back on track.”
She says: “I once had a request for my worn-out sneakers. I was at work at the time and one of the girls was like, ‘Can I answer?’ So she wrote back, ‘How much are we talking about?’
“This man said, ‘The more worn out, the more moneyMy colleague thought we could set this up as a company. I think if things take a turn for the worse, there is always another source of income.”
But the good news For followers including Michelle Keegan, it looks like Zara – and Sophie – will be showing them plenty more single antics in the near future future.
She says: “I always get asked if I’ve found someone yet. Readers are more interested in my love life than Zara’s.
“The parts of the book where Zara is in a relationship are difficult for me to write, because I’ve been single for so long.
“But I don’t think my relationship will change anytime soon.”
*Hot Girl Summer is out on July 18th from Orion, priced at £7.99 for a paperback.
