has had readers hot under the collar after reading her first raunchy novel – including her own mum.
The 62-year-old judge has put pen to paper to author a murder-mystery book titled Murder on the Dance Floor, which she describes as full of ‘sex, lies and intrigue’.
The ballroom dancer admitted it was so raunchy it got her mum ‘hot and bothered’ when she read it.
‘It’s a great sex, lies and intrigue murder mystery and a real page turner,’ she said.
She said her mum Audrey, who is an ‘avid reader of Mills Boon’, read the book in just six hours.
‘I asked her afterward if it was good and she said she couldn’t put it down,’ Shirley told .
The dance teacher said she likes to write as she has a ‘vivid imagination’ and was inspired to go into fiction writing after putting together her autobiography.
‘When I wrote my autobiography, there was a lot I couldn’t include, so I thought, “I’ll go into this genre”,’ she explained.
It comes after Shirley hinted after suffering ‘out of control’ abuse online.
She revealed that the that she received during the 2022 season left her at an ‘all-time low’ since joining Strictly, with trolls sending her about her decisions to send contestants home.
‘Last year I was struggling. It wasn’t just a little bit, it was a lot – the majority of it was in silence,’ she said.
‘I felt the abuse snowballed out of control and impacted me in such a negative way. I’m a pretty stoic person, and I tend to hold everything in.’
Shirley told that the negativity was the most she’s ‘ever experienced’, adding that the BBC was ‘brilliant’ at checking in on her and offering her counselling and support.
