Erotic novelist upsets neighbours with her book

Residents of Eccleshall are upset with the way they are portrayed in book which has been likened to Fifty Shades

Salacious doorstep whisperings are a part of many neighbours’ social interactions, but what if your daily gossip was used as fodder for a friend’s book? Residents of the Staffordshire town of Eccleshall have had to deal with just that. Rotten Row, the debut novel by erotic novelist Angela Hargreaves, features a cast of characters whose lives are dominated by scandalous sexual affairs; including a serial cheat boyfriend, a boob mad old man and a sex-obsessed widow. Speaking to the Telegraph newspaper, a resident of the town, who did not wished to be named, said that the book, likened to Fifty Shades of Grey, had caused ‘major problems’ in the area, as the nymphomaniac window character seems to be based on an elderly woman who lives near the author. The resident said: ‘People have turned their backs on her [Hargreaves]’, adding: ‘I don’t know why she has done it.’ Hargreaves’s next door neighbour, civil servant Emma Williams, 46, said that many of her private conversations with the author, who she has known for 10 years, have appeared in the book. She has as a result cut contact with her former friend, and stated: ‘I haven’t spoke to her since the novel came out.’ She is particularly hurt by what she believes to be a character based on her in the book, who is described as a ‘boring’ woman with a ‘mundane’ job. Hargreaves has denied that the novel’s characters are based on her neighbours. She said: ‘When I realised that a few people thought that they were characters in the book I was quite upset, because my characters are fictional.’

Her protests have failed to quell her neighbour’s anger, however. ‘We’ve been crossed off the invitation list for Christmas parties and cards’, she added. LATEST WORLD NEWS