LOS ANGELES — In Courtney Thorne-Smith's debut novel, "Outside In," the characters include Kate, a vulnerable TV star; a philandering husband; and a callous mom. None of them is plucked directly from her own life, the actress says firmly.

"I know people are going to think it's autobiographical," Thorne-Smith said. But the cad is not her ex-husband and the dreadful mother is "so comically not my mom. My mom would crawl over hot coals to have lunch with me."

The actress, whose career includes her breakout role in "Melrose Place" and her current gig opposite Jim Belushi in the ABC sitcom "According to Jim," says she deliberately avoided writing about herself.

"I got out of autobiography because my story is, I was famous, it was hard for me, I got into therapy. I had trouble with food, I got a nutritionist," she said, referring to her "Ally McBeal" days of obsessive thinness. "There's no story there."

Instead, she wanted to create an actress adrift and alone, someone who didn't have the kind of supportive family and friends who Thorne-Smith says got her through rough patches.

"You need someone to say, 'I'm sorry. That's too bad.' It seems so simple but it's very isolating, especially at a young age, to be famous," Thorne-Smith said.

Her own life seems wellordered. She's awaiting not only the September publication of her novel but the arrival of her first child this winter, with new husband Roger Fishman. She's also fitting in a seventh year of "According to Jim," scheduled to return at midseason.

Looking barely older than when she played Alison Parker on "Melrose Place" in the 1990s, the actress with the wide-eyed gaze and ready, throaty laugh clearly is relishing her circumstances — especially the prospect of parenthood.

She was lucky, at age 39, to meet "my guy," the man with whom she wanted to have a family. She and Fishman, 46, who's in marketing, married this year on New Year's Day.

"It's such an amazing moment for both of us, because we both sort of had to say, 'I don't know if this is going to happen for me.' The fact it's happening is just astounding," she said.

When it comes to her other baby, "Outside In" (Broadway Books), there's no getting around the fact that it's based in Thorne-Smith's world, even if she scrupulously avoids attaching real celebrity faces to the characters.

"It's really a story about female friendship and how that first connection helped her to find herself," she says of Kate.

The tone is wryly comedic, but also touching — and it's chaste. But the sequel already under way could be different.