Fresh off the book tour for her second novel, Coco Mellors spends her days at home in Clinton Hill, enjoying early motherhood with her ten-month-old son, writing her next novel and adapting her debut book for television.  

Mellors is a true cosmopolitan, having grown up in London before moving to New York at 15 with her father, where she discovered Downtown Manhattan, attended New York University for her MFA in creative writing and wrote her first novel, “Cleopatra and Frankenstein.” 

“I lived on the Upper East Side for my first two years, and then I moved down to the West Village for my senior year of high school. My whole life changed when I discovered Downtown,” said Mellors. “I was like, ‘Ah, yes, this is where it’s at.’ I stayed in the West Village for the next 12 or 13 years, until I was 30.” 

Mellors described herself as a “city person to my core,” and said it was only natural to set her works in large, densely populated cities. In her first novel, a character-driven story on relationships and phases of life, Mellors focuses mostly on Downtown Manhattan, though the characters also spend time in New Jersey, Los Angeles and Brooklyn.

“There’s just something about the sort of vibrancy and eclectic burst of cities. If you’re interested in people, there’s no better place to be than a city. You’re in close proximity to others at all times,” said Mellors. “For ‘Blue Sisters,’ I wanted to capture a postcard. There’s often only one or two chapters in the first set of cities, which is London, Paris and Los Angeles. I wanted super sharp, saturated scenes to capture the essence of the city with little images.” 

Mellors’ second novel, “Blue Sisters,” is set in four major cities — New York, London, Los Angeles and Paris. Mellors has spent most of her time in New York or London, lived in Los Angeles briefly and, outside of those places, has spent the most time in Paris.

“For me, Los Angeles was this street art that was kind of hideous and compelling. London was the feeling of being on the top of a double-decker bus. Paris was the metro, the little lever that opens the door, and it springs open and the color of dove gray roofs,” said Mellors. “New York was the sound — this ever-present noise that was surrounding the sisters. It was fun to think about these places that I dearly love, but it’s what can be so challenging about it at the same time.”

After selling “Cleopatra and Frankenstein” at 30 years old, Mellors got married and moved to Los Angeles for three years, but says she “missed New York way too much.” 

“I was pregnant with our baby, so we came back. Now, we live in Clinton Hill, and it’s so heavenly,” said Mellors. “It feels like I’m in the right place, and I also feel like, wow, you think you’re being original with your life choices, but you end up yet another mummy on the block.”

In May 2024, Mellors released “Blue Sisters,” and she toured the U.S. for the first half of September, including a stop at Books Are Magic on Montague Street. Back in her Brooklyn home with her son and husband, Mellors is already working on her next novel. Mellors’ debut novel focused on life in one’s 20s, “Blue Sisters” delved into family ties and Mellors’ next project explores motherhood. 

“For my next book, the topic is motherhood — the question of whether or not to become a mother, the question of fertility in your 30s as a woman and how it changes your experience of time,” said Mellors. “Men have many, many decades to make this objectively ginormous decision, whether or not to have a child. In comparison, women have a very small window of time to both find the person to do that with, to know if we want to do it and to physically be able to do it. It struck me as enormously unfair.” 

Mellors’ upcoming novel is about more than just the concept of motherhood, though. The author, in line with her previous works, deals with a variety of relationships and interpersonal questions. The narrator of Mellors’ book-in-progress is a filmmaker in Paris wrestling with being a woman in her 30s.

“I wanted to write a little bit about the experience of being at that point in your 30s where you’ve made decisions. You’re seeing this character search for security but also searching for freedom and how those two things rub up against one another,” said Mellors. “There’s friction, which I think many people can identify with, especially creatives. Wanting adventure, wanting freshness and newness and a sense of discovery, but also wanting consistency and love and family and wondering whether those things can coexist. I think they can, but this character isn’t so sure.”

Mellors isn’t just writing about a filmmaker, she’s working in the film industry for the first time, adapting her debut novel for the screen. “Cleopatra and Frankenstein” is in development with Warner Brothers and Brownstone Productions, Elizabeth Banks’s production company responsible for the “Pitch Perfect” franchise, “Bottoms” and “Cocaine Bear.”

“It’s so ripe for adaptation. I don’t think every book should be adapted, but there’s something about ‘Cleopatra and Frankenstein’ and that cast of characters, the setting and the time, even the outfits,” said Mellors. “It’s such a polyphonic novel. It’s a novel built of many different perspectives and experiences, and I think that really lends itself to television, which is inherently collaborative.”

Mellors is co-creating and co-writing the show, which marks her first time screenwriting since taking a class on the subject in high school. 

“My background is obviously novels, but I think because this book was so incredibly dialog-driven and character-driven, I felt lucky that I was invited into the process, which not every novelist gets to be,” said Mellors. “I still get to be involved and protect, for me, the essence and core of the story, even though some things will obviously change.”

As a co-creator and co-writer of the television series, Mellors has a unique opportunity to revisit her work. The author noted that when she wrote “Cleopatra and Frankenstein,” she had to make cuts to certain character arcs, but in the series, she hopes to dive deeper into the characters’ individual stories. 

“What I’m really excited about is some of those secondary characters in ‘Cleopatra and Frankenstein,’ like Zoe, Quentin and Santiago, having more robust and rich storylines that we have time for because the TV show is so much longer in episodes to let them have their own life,” said Mellors. “Of course, Cleo and Frank are at the center of the story, but these other characters, and I think this is true of the book, are also three-dimensional and have their own lives that exist separately.”

The character Mellors is most excited to bring to the screen is Cleo’s good friend Audrey, whose story was cut short in the novel for the sake of relevance, time and space. In the television series, Mellors hopes to give Audrey her own episode or storyline. 

“I think that’s going to be really wonderful to see, and to have other writers who have the backgrounds or experiences of those characters to be able to write for them,” said Mellors. “I’m really excited to not be the sole owner of this story anymore. I want it to belong to more people than just me.” 

With a penchant for deep characters and psychological, narrative storytelling, Mellors suspects that her experience with therapy plays a role in her approach to writing characters.

“Psychological insight into people is something that I feel I do have,” said Mellors. “My mother is a therapist. My sister’s training to be a therapist. My best friend is a therapist. I’ve been in therapy since I was 15, so I think in terms of analysis and considering people and their motives and their hidden desires, those are things that I love writing about, and I feel like I understand them.”

Mellors’ writing has dealt heavily with themes like addiction and substance abuse. In “Cleopatra and Frankenstein,” Mellors depicts the struggles of being in a relationship while wrestling with addiction, as well as the struggles that come with loving someone dealing with addiction. In “Blue Sisters,” Mellors approaches the topic from the perspective of a family. In that novel, four sisters deal with their sister’s death while confronting personal issues. 

Mellors said addiction is a topic that “most people have some experience with,” and she found it to be a throughline in her work for a reason. Mellors struggled with addiction and is vocal about her sobriety. She noted that writing characters who struggle with the complexities of addiction is rooted in her experience and desire to share both sides of the story.

“It’s so incredibly common, even though it’s something so shrouded in shame and secrecy for so many of us. I am hard pressed, particularly in cities, to find anyone I know who has not at some point in their life come across an addict or alcoholic or wounded someone if they have problems themselves,” said Mellors. “What I want to do in my work is to write about the things we have a hard time talking about. Putting things in language is a dissolver of shame.” 

Mellors approaches dark topics in her writing with compassion in the hopes that her readers will extend the same courtesy to themselves. 

“I show the very real effects of what they’ve done and if they’re in active addiction. It’s something that comes up a lot, and it’s a big part of my life,” said Mellors. “I’m proud to be sober. As a result, I’ve experienced both sides of the story — what it’s like to be in active addiction, what it’s like to be in recovery for it, what it’s like to be in a relationship with someone like that or to be a family member of someone like that. For better or worse, that’s one of the things that I have unique insight into. As a writer, you always try to find what those things are, and this one is mine.”

Readers on TikTok and Instagram clearly resonate with Mellors’ writing, with “Cleopatra and Frankenstein” being a popular BookTok recommendation. Mellors says although she tries to resist getting sucked into the endless scroll of social media platforms, but admits the response from readers has been rewarding and useful when promoting her second novel. 

“I’m phenomenally grateful to it, because I think that it democratized a lot of reading for people, and it made reading accessible, and it made reading seem cool in a way that it hadn’t before, even though it lowkey always has been,” said Mellors. “I feel that a lot of the success of my book was in part due to people talking about it on social media. There’s something about the characters in both my first and second book that feel alive to people, so they can talk about them as if they’re people. They could be excited by them and pick favorites and be enraged by them, and it’s amazing to witness that. I love having direct access to readers, and it’s something that I think is really wonderful.” 

Mellors’ latest novel, “Blue Sisters,” and “Cleopatra and Frankenstein” are available online and in most bookstores, including Books Are Magic on Montague Street. Details on the upcoming television adaptation of “Cleopatra and Frankenstein” will be announced soon.