"If I'm ever forced to quit alcohol or sex, it'll have to be the booze. Even a woman as attractive as I am can't expect to be paid for drinking. But I'm not being forced to give up either. I'm about to get lots of both." Despite making a reasonable income as a public servant, Melanie Sagan charges strangers for sex. Her boyfriend doesn't know about it, but asking people for money to be naked makes it business, not cheating. Doesn't it? If I were pitching this novel to a literary agent or a publisher, I’d be describing it in terms of the tragi-comedy, Dirty Realism and transgressive fiction of Charles Bukowski, or perhaps a British love letter to Tom Kapinos’ Californication. For context I’d be talking about the clash of society’s macrocosmic liberal and conservative values with the emotionally and physically intimate microcosm of contemporary human couplings. But that’s all bullshit for sales folk. I’m just happy to be offering you a story with lots of sex, alcohol and drugs. It’s knockabout stuff populated by very relatable folk, but my description can’t do the novel as much justice as that of its star. See what Mel has to say for herself.