Books: I Never Fancied Him Anyway
A psychic realizes the perfect man she’s meant to be with is dating her best friend instead *** 3 stars
By Gabrielle Pantera
I Never Fancied Him Anyway, how far will a psychic go in getting Mr. Right?
HOLLYWOOD, CA (Gosh!TV) 12/27/2009 – “The idea came a few years ago when I was working on a TV soap opera set in Ireland,” says I never Fancied Him Anyway author Claudia Carroll. “A gang of my girlfriends from the show all trooped along to see a famous fortune teller. It was all a great giggle, but the thing that struck me was this, the only two questions we all asked were: ‘Where’s Mr Right?’ and ‘How much longer do I have to wait for him!’. It got me thinking, what must it be like to be someone with a genuine psychic gift who’s constantly bombarded with these questions?”
I Never Fancied Him Anyway is the story of Cassandra, a psychic who writes a column in a Dublin magazine. Cassie is funny and believes in her psychic ability, but not the occult. Cassie’s “flashes”, as she calls them, always involve the love lives of strangers, never herself or her friends. She and her three best friends have been unlucky in love. Cassie is shocked when a flash reveals she her best friend Charlene is dating the man of her future. What’s a girl to do? Does friendship win out over the man your meant to be with?
“Naturally, I went along to see a lot of psychics myself when I was researching the book,” says Carroll. “Some were just rubbish, but I did find one woman who knew things about me and my family that she couldn’t possibly have known. She predicted that the book would be optioned and made into a movie. At the time, I giggled. It’s being adapted for a movie, produced by Wendy Finerman, who made PS, I Love You as well as The Devil Wears Prada, and the adaptation is by Robin Swicord, who also adapted The Jane Austen Book Club. All very exciting!”
Carroll did much of her psychic research at “mind, body, spirit” fairs where strangers told her that the man of her dreams was just around the corner. “I’m still waiting…” says Carroll. In her book, Carroll examines the moral dilemma of what it would mean to be truly psychic. “What if you see something negative in someone’s future? Do you warn them? Or is it better to let the person themselves choose between fate and destiny?”
Claudia Carroll met her agent, Marianne Gunn O’Connor, through an author pal who’d signed with O’Connor about a year before Carroll did. “She sent in the first few chapters of my new book to Marianne,” says Carroll. “I swear to God, the wait to find out whether she’d take me on or not was excruciating. It all worked out though, and now I would count Marianne as one of my closest pals.”
O’Connor introduced Carroll to Avon editor Francesca Liversidge. “Francesca’s editorial process was a joy to work on,” says Carroll. “She’d give me a few pages of very concise notes, and I would prune the manuscript back a bit. Then the book went off for a copy edit, which is where you focus on the smaller things I’m inclined to miss…grammar, spelling and punctuation among them. If you think about it, your editor is really your very first reader. When you write a book you’re so close to the story. You really need that third eye to look over your work and make suggestions as to how to tighten the story.”
I Never Fancied Him Anyway is great for reading a plane ride or at the beach. The unusual occupation of being a psychic really makes the story. The compassion Cassandra has for the people she’s helping is nice. Cassandra is caught between her friendships and fate. Her friend Charlene, a stereotype of a rich girl, becomes a bit tiresome. It’s best to gloss over Charlene. The rest of the book is a fun read.
“Having the book optioned was just amazing,” says Carroll. “I still can’t believe it. And I’ll most likely still be pinching myself when I’m sitting in the cinema, bucket of popcorn on my knee, watching it. It’s really the stuff of dreams.”
Carroll was born and currently lives in Dublin. She’s currently working on editing her seventh novel, which is called Personally, I Blame My Fairy Godmother and is to be published by Harper Collins in May, 2010.
I Never Fancied Him Anyway by Claudia Carroll
Trade Paperback, 448 pages, Publisher: Avon, September 22, 2009, Language: English, ISBN: 9780061734779 $13.99