Sex in the shade lights up sales

As a raunchy trilogy climbs the US bestseller lists, Declan Burke asks Irish writers if they’ll be spicing up their output

AT FIRST glance, it’s difficult to work out the attraction for women of the Fifty Shades trilogy of books, in which a handsome billionaire woos a young woman with the prospect of an inventive sex-life and untold riches. Oh. Right.

Set in Seattle, and first written as Twilight-style fan-fiction by British TV executive EL James, the Fifty Shades trilogy — dubbed ‘mommy porn’ — has become a publishing sensation in the US.