Los Angeles, 2024. After learning that her A-List actor husband sent explicit photos to multiple girls on social media, Margot Cooper runs away from the world—and the paparazzi—by fleeing to her childhood home with her teenage daughter in tow.
But home isn’t the sanctuary Margot was hoping for. In a cardboard box in the corner of the attic, she finds damning evidence of an infamous urban legend, the mysterious vigilante “Lady X”—including a blurry newspaper photo of a woman who looks an awful lot like Margot’s mother.
New York City, 1977. In the midst of an infamous summer, Ginger Daughtry and her two beloved roommates are able to shield each other from the chaos—until one of them is assaulted. Astounded by the lack of response from police, the young women decide to engage in some light payback, signing their handiwork as “Lady X.”
Soon copycats appear, and a movement inspired by acts of vandalism against terrible men spirals out of control, with criminals running amok under the guise of the enigmatic “Lady X.” When a body is found fallen—or pushed—from five stories high, the hunt reaches a boiling point.
But Lady X has vanished into thin air.
Lady X is a timely tale of female rage and revenge. Part historical fiction/part mystery, Fader's latest is a dual timeline tour de force—she juxtaposes gritty 1970s New York against a modern-day Hollywood scandal.
The mystery is grounded in real historical events, yet equally riveting is the present day storyline that is ripe with drama and celebrity culture. With its fully fleshed-out characters and atmospheric setting, this novel is immersive and unforgettable.
If you enjoy themes of sisterhood—both found and biological—feminism, and complex protagonists, this book is for you. Sassy, strong, and satisfying, Lady X perfectly personifies feminine rage and fearlessness.
MOLLY FADER is the author of The McAvoy Sister’s Book Of Secrets, The Bitter and Sweet of Cherry Season, The Sunshine Girls, and Lady X. As Molly O’Keefe, she is the USA Today Bestselling author of over 50 contemporary romances.
Fader resides in Toronto with her husband, two kids, and rescue dog.
Q & A with Molly Fader*
GWR: Can you talk about your writing process? Are you a pantser/gardner or a plotter/architect?
MF: What is this gardener/architect you speak of? I am so intrigued! I wish I could say yes to both?? Mostly I am a plotter—I need to know where I’m going before I sit down to work on a book. And in the day to day of writing, I like to spend a few minutes every morning making my plan for the day so I’m not just sitting there thinking about scrolling Instagram :) The tricky part is leaving enough room in my plot/plan for magic to happen. For characters to surprise me. I find that if I can get that balance right—the book really comes alive for me and the process is very joyful.
GWR: Being a seasoned author, what is your favourite part of the publishing process? Is there anything that you still find difficult?
MF: Editing. Hands down. I love editing. When a book is done and I can see the whole project and I can go back and make changes that hopefully pull together themes and create places where the reader will be surprised. But then when an editor gets a hold of the book and sees it with fresh eyes and enthusiasm and says “but what about this?” and everything takes on a new life—I love it. I love it so much. The most difficult part of writing is the months of drafting after the heady rush of the beginning is over and before the thrilling down hill race to the end. That middle part - hard work.
GWR: What sparked the idea for Lady X?
MF: Whenever I’m thinking of a new book, I walk around for a few months with some general vibes or themes I want to explore and then I wait for the lightning strike idea that brings them together into a story idea. So on the one hand, over the last few years I’ve watched men go unpunished for terrible crimes against women and have felt nothing but rage and a kind of helplessness. At the same time I am raising a young woman who, with almost no help from me, is pushing back on the idea of being “nice” and making herself uncomfortable so men can feel more comfortable. So, I was walking around with those two ideas, and then during the pandemic, Taylor Swift released the Midnights album with the song "Vigilante Shit" on it, and that was my lightening strike. Lady X was born.
GWR: What are some of the central questions in your novels and how does Lady X fit into your body of work?
MF: I wrote romance for years and I love romance as a reader and a writer. Sex and love were incredible and are incredible vehicles for telling women’s stories. But as I’ve gotten older (and angrier :)) there are other relationships that are just as compelling to me. So, I started to write about estranged families and deep female friendships. Lady X is a departure for me—it has more of a mystery driving the plot, but at it’s heart it’s about women lifting other women up and helping them through their darkest days. And revenge. It’s mostly about revenge :)
GWR: In this book you introduce a highly varied cast of characters. Who was your favourite character to write? Which one would you most likely want to grab a drink with?
MF: Margot—the woman in the present timeline whose famous husband humiliates her by being disgusting on the internet—was my favourite character to write. And she’s very polarizing—people either love or hate her, but she resonated with me A LOT. Maybe because we’re the same age with kids and the instinct to burn her life down didn’t come naturally to her. She had to get angry instead of sad and scared and that was a very fun process to write. The two scenes when she loses it were my favourite scene. I have a podcast series called Day Drinking With Authors where I pick a book the author picks a drink and we discuss both and I would love to have Julia, Margot’s sister on the podcast. She is unfiltered and in touch with some of the sharper sides of herself in a way I am envious and fascinated by. Faye would be interesting to talk to—but I don’t think she’d be very forthcoming—but if she was there with Rachel and Ginger, now that would be FUN!
GWR: This novel explores the power of female relationships as well as female resistance—why was it important for you to write about these themes?
MF: Writing this book I thought a lot about the friendships women make in their early twenties. Those first adult friends as you’re really starting to know who you are and how the chemistry of those friendships can be a lot like falling in love. So intense. So revealing. I am also always fascinated by the friendships you make under duress. Bad jobs, bad apartments, hard situations—the kind of forged in fire bonds that aren’t like any other relationship. The three room mates in NYC—Ginger, Faye and Rachel—have that energy. As for resistance, we’ve been watching it play out in real time the last few years. Just so many women fighting so hard to get autonomy and justice—it’s been so inspiring.
GWR: Tell me about the research you did for the novel. Did any real events influence the story? And how did you recreate the social and political atmosphere of the 70s?
MF: Deciding to set the novel in 1977 NYC was a bold and terrifying decision. There was SO MUCH going on that summer. Son of Sam, the black out, the crime, Studio 54, the city was bankrupt. So much. I knew I needed a reason why Lady X faded into obscurity and so I used the press and the city’s obsession with Son of Sam as that reason. The black out and all the chaos that happened in those hours gave me the best setting for the climactic ending. As for research, I was working on this book during the pandemic and there was a NYC walking tour company that did zoom tours around the city. And they were incredibly helpful.
GWR: Can you talk about the structure of the book? How did you balance the contemporary story with the 1970s New York setting?
MF: I love dual timeline books and I know the biggest pitfall of them is having one timeline be more exciting than the other so I wanted there to be very high stakes in both timelines. Margot and her jerk husband, and her relationship with her daughter, and finding out that her mother may have been a part of a vigilante girl gang, all kept the current timeline moving—but I also wanted to show how in a lot of cases, women are still fighting the same fights. And Lady X is as relevant now as she was in the 70s. The hardest part were the interstitials between the timelines—using press clippings and podcast excerpts to build the lore of Lady X while not giving anything away—so hard. But I’ve gotten a lot of messages from people saying that they looked up Lady X because they were sure she was real!
GWR: What do you hope readers will take away from Lady X?
MF: The time to be nice to men who make us uncomfortable is over. We’re not here to smooth the way or apologize for men’s terrible behaviour. We need each other now more than ever and cherish the friends who will engage in revenge with you :)
GWR: If your book was a beverage, what would it be?
MF: Oh, a Manhattan. Sweet, with a powerful kick.
GWR: What are you working on now?
MF: I am working on a book set in 1980’s Nashville about women and ambition and an infamous country band called The Thorns.
*A version of this post was published on STYLE Canada.
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