Thirty Love | Chapter Two

Mollie takes over Chapter Two and wastes no time giving Matt exactly what he asked for: less meandering, more dialogue, and a sharper sense of scandal. We rejoin the guests at Willow Manor huddled around the body of Augustus Smythe, as D.I. Brie Roquefort attempts to seize control of the room and formally declares that Smythe was murdered — to the horror of everyone who realises they’re now trapped in the house and (even worse) might miss the Bake Off final.

Mollie introduces two new suspects with big personalities: Antoinette Du Beke, a dramatic French ballroom instructor, and Raffaella Ladal, a glamour-loving tennis obsessive in a sequin dress. Tensions immediately flare as Mrs Paisley publicly accuses Antoinette of trying to “waltz” her way into Smythe’s life, while Antoinette fires back with a key revelation: Mrs Paisley wasn’t just hiding things in the grandfather clock — she bought Smythe the shredder.

The chapter then rewinds to the morning of the dinner party to flesh out Smythe’s backstory: a young, handsome “Gosling of Gloucestershire” struggling with the upkeep of Willow Manor and a messy love life. We learn his great obsession was Raffaella — his tennis doubles partner and the object of his affection — before Mollie lands a final, soap-operatic twist: Raffaella was having an affair with Smythe… and she’s married to another resident of Willow Manor, Lord Ladal. With motives multiplying, Chalk mysteriously absent, and two suspects still unrevealed, Steffan sets Matt his next writing brief: an interrogation, a surprise, and the introduction of a new character.

Matt and Mollie are writing a novel… together. They alternate chapters in a bid to create a gripping murder mystery. The catch? They have completely different ideas about what the book should be.

Hosted by Matt Edmondson and Mollie King, with ever-patient narrator and referee Steffan Powell, each has just one week to continue the story — reacting, escalating, derailing and occasionally rescuing the plot from the other. Steffan reads the chapters aloud and tries to keep the whole thing vaguely coherent.

What starts as a simple premise becomes a competitive, unpredictable battle of twists, cliffhangers and creative one-upmanship.

Part comedy show, part audiobook, part social experiment — and by the end, there’s a complete original novel, written in real time.

Welcome to the story.

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