Claudia Carroll

Hello to my Lovelies! News, news news……my latest book is coming out in July, it’s called A VERY ACCIDENTAL LOVE STORY and I’m so excited about it! Wait till you see the cover though….no messing, when I first laid eyes on it, my jaw dropped and all I could do was stare meserised at the computer screen, marvelling at it’s beauty. Can’t thank the wonderful Nikki Dupin and all the amazing gals at Avon for their incredible hard work in designing it. Anyway, I’m going to try and upload it here, so you can all have an early sneak peek. Will be dying to know what you think, and really praying you all love it as much as I do! Much love for now, Cxxxx

God, don’t you just hate the dying days of January? The miserable weather and the way we’re all smashed broke after overdoing it …as usual…at Christmas. And now all these ‘gun to the head’ household charges we’re expected to pay……I just forked out 100 Euro for ‘service charge’ to have the bins collected…and the feckers still didn’t turn up! Greyhound, you have just made an enemy for yourselves…. Tried ringing up to complain and of course after the usual twenty minute compulsory listen-in to an automated answering service, (‘to pay a charge, press one. To kick someone’s head in, press two. If by now, you are slowly losing the will to live, then please check out our website….’ grrrrrrr.)

  Anyway, I just wondered if anyone out there had any survival tips to get us all through to Spring??!! Would be so intrigued to know…..

In the meantime, I really hope you’re all doing OK. My own personal coping mechanism for the dark, dismal days is to try to get out to the movies when at all possible. It’s a grand cheapie night out, as my mother would say, plus there’s actually loads of brilliant stuff on at the minute. The Artist is only gorgeous in case you haven’t seen it yet and Meryl Streep as Maggie Thatcher would give you a shiver down your spine, she’s that good.

And I have a feeling the Oscar shortlist is out today….any predictions? I’d bet my Granny on Meryl for best actress, though Michelle Williams is amazing as Marilyn Monroe too in that Kenneth Branagh movie…..any thoughts ,anyone?????

Much love and will be in touch soon with a more interesting post..promise!!

Cxxx

I am a terrible worrier. To the extent that my definition of happiness is the absence of worry.

You wouldn’t believe the kinds of things I worry about: Will something awful happen to one of my parents? Will something worse happen to me? And if I die and do make it up to Heaven, suppose it’s full of people I couldn’t stand when they were alive? Will Gaddafi ever be found, holed up in some underground bunker in the back arse of Tripoli? Will my next-door-neighbour from hell ever sell up and move before there’s a bloodbath on our road and we all end up on the nine o’clock news?

Even as a child, ostensibly the one time of your life when other people are supposed to worry about you instead of the other way around, I’d say I knocked a good three to five years off my life through sheer worrying.

To the extent that even if there was absolutely nothing for me to stress about, I’d worry about there being a nuclear war and Regan blowing us all sky high. (Back in the dim, distant pre-Glasnost eighties, things kind of looked that way…)

And my latest worry is … don’t laugh … Princess Charlene of Monaco. I know, I know: she’s a beautiful, rich princess, why would any sane-minded person waste time worrying about her?

Answer: did you not SEE the shagging wedding? Yes, she was quite jaw-droppingly gorgeous, but was I the only person who thought the girl looked sedated? Like she’d had to take at least two Zanax just to even get her into the dress? We all heard the horror stories: how she tried to leg it beforehand, how she was practically strongarmed off the plane and had her passport confiscated by palace heavies, yadda, yadda.

And really, would you blame the girl? OK , just say you found out a matter of weeks before your big day that your fella had not only been seeing someone else behind your back but had also fathered a child with her.  While at the same time another ex of his was merrily parading round Monaco with her son – also Albert’s – just the week before your wedding? Now admittedly if that happened in London or NYC, the latter  mightn’t be all that big a deal; but bear in mind Monaco is approximately the same size as your average food hall in Marks and Spencers and you’ll see why that could potentially cause mortification for a bride-to-be.

Not only that but SKY very kindly showed the whole ceremony in full, and I’m telling you, she never smiled ONCE throughout the entire ceremony. Nor did Crown Prince Baldie as much as look at his beautiful bride. To add insult to injury, after the service, they went onto some tiny little church so she could lay her bouquet on the tomb on Monaco’s founding patron and when they came out, the girl was bawling. And no, they weren’t ‘Oh I’m so HAAAAAAPPPPY!!’  tears of joy either, in the manner of Miss World contestants when they win. Or indeed when they don’t.

No, the poor girl was blubbering like an eliminated X Factor finalist: howling, agonising tears of someone who’s realised she’s made the biggest – and most public- mistake of her life. And what did her loving husband of two hours say to her? According to lipreaders (oh yes, SKY news are very thorough,) not words of comfort of consolation, no. he said, ‘Shut up crying.’ Mother of God, I would have been on the first bus outta there and to hell with the shedloads of wedding gifts anyway.

Now it’s been a particularly bumper year for Royal Weddings, but spot the difference. At William and Kate’s, big day though it was with one of the largest TV audiences since the moon landings, with all the stress that must have entailed for the happy couple, you could still see at the very heart of it all two people who really, genuinely love and adore each other. And given that they’re both very private people, they may not exactly have been blissfully happy to share their big day with a global audience, but neither ever let on. And it was magic, and we all had a ball watching it.

The papers of late seem to have been doing their level best to pinhole Kate, or K-Middy, as they now refer to her, into the role of ‘The New Diana.’ But there’s no need to. Because we already have one, who looks stuck in a pretty loveless marriage to me. She just lives in a county the size of a ghost estate about a thousand or so kilometres south, that’s all…..

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On a totally different note, can I just tell you all that the paperback of my new book, WILL YOU STILL LOVE ME TOMORROW, came out in August and got to no 2 in Ireland and onto the top 10 in the UK. So a massive and heartfelt thank you to all of you who made this possible.

And for all your lovely messages too, you’ve no idea how much they mean, and I’m hugely grateful to all of you for taking the time and trouble to write to me. I’ve actually just finished my new book, called AN ACCIDENTAL LOVE AFFAIR and will be delivering it to my amazing editor at the end of the month, for publication next year, so I’ll be sure to keep you all posted about that one too…….

In the meantime, wishing you all a happy September, and lots of love to you all,

Cxxxxxxxxxxxx

Hi everyone,

Hope you’re all having a great summer and enjoying the fabulous weather!

Just thought I’d let you know about an exciting new development – starting early next week, I’ll be releasing a quarterly newsletter, offering you sneak early peeks of new work, exciting competitions with the like of Champneys and Authonomy, updates on exclusive events and much more.

Find out more and sign-up here:  http://bit.ly/pjiTm6

All the very best,

Claudia

X

I have a horrible confession to make and there’s a good chance it’ll lead onto hate mail being forwarded onto me via the good people at Avon. But in the spirit of ah-to-hell-might-as-well-come-clean, here goes.

I have never, in my entire life enjoyed a holiday in Ireland.

And before you start reaching for the blazing pitchforks and crucifixes, let me explain. It’s not the people, sure how could it be? Friendliest, warmest, funniest, best in the world and if you ask me, they should be paying everyone a royalty fee on every ‘ah, you’re welcome,’ smiled at every tourist fresh off a flight. Nor is it the countryside, which is like something so beautiful it could only have been imagined by a Hollywood art department. And you certainly can’t fault all the hardworking hotels and B & Bs who’ve had a tough recession and who’ve basically lowered their prices right back to pre-war levels.

I’m sorry, but it’s the weather. You see, we’ve not four, but only two seasons here. Winter and Lesser Winter, and you take pot luck whenever you’re taking a little break at home. Your heart would go out to tourists, who are puzzled when we’re all lighting fires in June while hurricanes rage outside, then can’t believe their luck when it’s October and everyone’s strolling round in T shirts with big red faces because it’s twenty four Celsius.

So when a good pal rang me to say she’d a few days free and did I fancy going down to Kerry with her for a few nights R and R, I just couldn’t do it. Couldn’t commit to forty eight hours in a hotel in wellies looking out at monsoon rain and with nothing to do but play Scrabble indoors. Be like the time Father Ted and Dougal were stuck in the caravan looking out at a load of cows – only worse, because a hotel would be dearer.

Now it’s Wimbledon week and, true to form, it’s a bleeding washout. Meanwhile, it’s like every time I go online or open a paper, there’s an ad from some hard pressed travel agency practically begging you to go on a week’s sun holiday to far flung corner of Spain or Egypt, for about the same price as your average night out in Dublin. But my conscience, which I don’t hear from all that much, says no. We’re in the worst economic meltdown since the Depression here. You need to holiday at home, if at all. Stay in Ireland. Do. Not. Go. To. The. Sun.

So if you’re reading this, please advise. What do you do if you just really fancy a few days on a sunlounger in a pair of shorts feeling actual heat on your skin? Book a course of sunbeds here maybe?

Hmmmm. Dilemmas, dilemmas…

Busy, busy week. My new book, WILL YOU STILL LOVE ME TOMORROW, launched officially last Thursday – and it’s always the same for any author. Whenever a new book hits the shelves…it’s invariably time for the book tour.

Now for someone like me that spends 90% of my time a) staring at a computer screen, b) screaming at a computer screen or else c) resisting the urge to fling the computer screen out the window on a bad day, a book tour is like a ‘get out of jail free’ card. Since authors spend such huge amounts of time alone or else living with characters in our heads, to actually get out and about and to be able to meet the people at the coalface who are selling our books, is a massive bonus.

WYSLMT published last week

The week begins with a radio interview on Newstalk radio with Sile Seoige sitting in for Tom Dunne. I’ve met Sile before and feel like I know hear really well on account of I follow her on Twitter. (Curse Twitter anyway; like authors don’t have enough to distract them as it is?) Anyroadup, Sile is a natural interviewer; she has that gift of getting you to chat away like you’ve known each other for decades.
She’s also a book lover, and you’d be amazed the number of interviewers who can be cutting or even condescending about women’s commercial fiction. So we yak away and in no time, it’s all done and dusted.

One down, about another five to go!

So then onto the Eason’s warehouse, which is out by the airport, for my first book signing. Tony Purdue, who does incredible work for HarperCollins here in Dublin, comes with me and we sign for Ireland for the rest of the morning. Must sign about a thousand copies and although the hand is hanging off me after it all, the team at Eason’s are just so dotie and lovely, it’s like visiting old pals. Everyone’s in great form, looking forward to Easter, and we’re all mad jealous of our colleagues in the UK who get a four-day bank holiday in the UK on account of William and Kate’s wedding. God, I love Easons. If every book signing was like this, I’d never get any work done…too busy nattering

Then yesterday, a long standing gig; I’m a judge at a contest to find Ireland’s greatest storyteller, sponsored by Lyons tea. It’s a clever concept; Lyons linked up the idea of finding our next greatest storyteller with having a cuppa tea, as that’s what we most associate telling stories with….a chat over a mug of tea. I’m one of three judges, alone with comedian Karl Spain who keeps everyone in kinks of laughter for the day and Claire Muireann Murphy, a professional storyteller from Galway. The standard is astonishing high and it’s tough finding a winner. In fact skin and hair flies in the judge’s room, as they’re just all so bloody good. But one storyteller really did stand out, his story was about how he met his fiancée, and it there wasn’t a dry eye in the house. So we crowned our winner, who won a very jammy, recession-busting cheque for ten grand…..well deserved too.

Phew! That’s this week so far, but will be sure to post more very soon…

Launch week, gulp sweat. It’s a bizarre thing, but although this is my eighth book, the nerves, terror and sheer adrenaline really never go away. I don’t know one single author that doesn’t have sleepless nights leading up to a launch, no matter how well the other books have done in the past. Maybe it’s recession, or the fact that no one seems to be spending any more, but I’m finding myself praying till my knees are worn out that a) people buy the book, b) like it and c) don’t fling rocks on me at the street if they don’t. Plus ça change and all that.

And then miraculously, we turn a corner. Lovely messages start coming though on Facebook and Twitter and email with readers wanting to know exactly when WILL YOU STILL LOVE ME TOMORROW will hit the shelves and will I be doing book singings anywhere? Am deeply humbled by the response, I really am. In this climate, whenever anyone is prepared to shell out their hard-earned cash to buy something that I’ve written is utterly amazing to me and if it were possible, I’d want to personally visit each and every reader in their house with a big bunch of flowers and thank them properly. I appreciate it.

The amazing Moira Reilly, that living legend and tour de force is HarperCollins’ publicist in Ireland and she looks after all matters related to interviews, press, signings etc. Thank God for her. She’s one of those people that when she’s in your corner, you just relax, knowing that all will be well. Anyroadup, she’s in the process doing out a book schedule for me, which we’ll have as soon as the book hits the shelves this weekend, so as soon as I know, I’ll post it here.

But what I know so far is that it’s very busy. I’m on the Ireland Am breakfast show on 26th August and lots of interviews and columns that I wrote a few weeks ago are all published now. I did one for the Sunday Times, which was in last Sunday’s paper and also, the lovely Aine Toner published a really nice piece about the book in this week’s Woman’s Way. And of course, huge thanks to TV Now who ran a great article about the book too.

Funny thing, but because writers spend so much time alone, when you are let out and get to chat about your work to a journalists or booksellers, it’s like the major perk of the job. The trouble isn’t drawing me out of myself to chat about the book, it’s getting me to shut up that’s the problem……

So watch this space and I’ll be in touch very soon……………………..