Lauren Conrad is your quintessential girl next door — provided you grew up in the affluent neighborhood of Laguna Beach, Calif.

Beautiful, blond, tan and wealthy, Lauren was born to have the world at her feet. But it was her natural look and innocence that made her stand out to the MTV producers on the prowl for a star for their reality show, Laguna Beach: The Real Orange County. Conrad was such a hit on the show that she was featured in the spinoff The Hills when she moved to L.A.

Now, after five successful seasons, she has moved on from reality TV. And her fans are following. Alice Soto, 65, drove from Corpus Christi with granddaughters, Amanda Guerrero, 21, and Allison Priddy, 16, to join the crowd of 100-plus people who showed up recently at Blue Willow bookshop in west Houston to meet Conrad as she was signing copies of her first book, L.A. Candy ($17.99, Harper Collins).

“About two years ago I wanted to start writing a book, but I didn’t know what I wanted to write about,” she said. “Originally I thought about doing kind of a fun dating book and then a fashion book.”

Her publisher came up with the idea of a fiction novel. So she wrote what she knew. L.A. Candy is inspired by Lauren’s experiences starring in a reality TV show, on- and off-camera. The book follows Jane Roberts, who moves to L.A. for an internship. One night at a club, Jane and her witty, loud-mouthed BF, Scarlett, are approached by a producer to be on a new show, L.A. Candy, a “reality version of Sex and the City.”

Conrad says she identifies with her main character, Jane, and originally planned to tell the story from Jane’s point of view. But as she started writing, she decided to show certain scenes through different characters’ eyes. “Scarlett was how I could use sarcasm. Jane was a little bit sweeter, so she could be more naïve and more affected. I had reasons for making the characters a little bit different to have different ways of looking at things.”

L.A. Candy is the first of a three-book series , which will continue to follow Jane and Scarlett , but with new characters introduced.

What’s next for the star? She is already at work on the second novel, and she has a new collection for Kohl’s due in stores in October, which she describes as “California chic made more accessible.” And she plans to produce a TV version of L.A. Candy some time in the future.

Will The Hills fans continue to watch the show now that Lauren is out and her arch frenemy from Laguna Beach, Kristin Cavallarie, is the star of the show?

Soto said her family will watch the new season, even though they don’t care for Kristin. “We are Team Lauren.”

Source: chron.com