A Very Accidental Love Story

by Claudia Carroll

An original, funny and poignant story about those things in life that you just can’t plan for…

`A very modern fairytale, full of Claudia’s trademark wit and humour’ Sheila O’Flanagan

Eloise Elliot is one of the youngest newspaper editors in the country. Respected and revered by her peers, she’s at the top of her game.

But, on the eve of her thirtieth birthday, finding herself surrounded by some pathetic looking balloons and mangy sandwiches in The Daily Post’s conference room, Eloise is hit but a long sharp pang of loneliness.

Suddenly, and with dazzling clarity, she realises what she wants to make her life more complete. A baby.

One successful trip to the sperm bank and almost three years later and she is the adoring mother of a gorgeous little girl, Lily. Juggling a high-powered job with motherhood is not easy and when she finds herself without childcare she sends an SOS to her sister Helen. Yet it’s when Lily starts asking about her `daddy’ that Eloise really starts to panic. What will she tell her?

So Eloise decides there’s nothing for it – she’s going to find Lily’s father. After all, she chose the perfect donor so surely there won’t be any surprises. Except that there are plenty, and Eloise gets a lot more than she bargained for.

• ISBN13: 9781847562739
• Publish Date: 19 July 2012
• Publish Status: Out of Print
• Out of Print: 21 September 2012
• Publish Country: GB
• Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
• Imprint: AVON, a division of HarperCollins Publishers Ltd
• Format: Paperback
• Pages: 416
• Language: English
• URL: http://harpercollins.co.uk

Reviews

[Leah]

Claudia Carroll is an author that is rapidly climbing my favourite authors lists. I didn’t get on much with her debut novel, but her last two books (Personally, I Blame My Fairy Godmother and Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow?) have been excellent rom-coms. Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow? particularly blew me away and I loved Annie’s tale. So after hearing Claudia’s new book A Very Accidental Love Story was about a woman who had a child through artificial insemination and then decides she needs to find out who he is just in case her daughter Lily ever decides to track him down, well, I was intrigued. Especially when Claudia revealed in our interview last year that Lily’s father is in prison, no less, and Eloise turns him into her pet project, in a bid to make him a much better prospect for her beautiful daughter.

I found A Very Accidental Love Story to be one that gave me varying opinions. On the one hand, I liked the novel. The idea (the plot is ingenious and it makes a change for a woman to have a baby sans a man), most of the characters (Ryan. Ryan. Ryan.), the writing was great – Claudia is a brilliant writer. But, I had bad bits. Eloise was a bit irritating at times. She’s a bit of a snob. Ryan as he was wasn’t good enough for Eloise (the prison bit, fair enough, but I just felt she tried to change him too much).

Also the writing was a bit repetitive in the early pages. Eloise kept saying how Lily wasn’t yet three years old, about five times in three pages, and I just wasn’t ever going to forget poor Lily wasn’t yet three. There was a couple of bits like that – also when she was first searching for Ryan and how she wanted him to be this and that and the other. It was little things like that. I also thought the third-person Prologue was odd. I’d have written it in first-person personally. However, the third person worked well when we were introduced to Ryan. I liked the switch from Eloise’s perspective to third-person so we could learn more about Ryan.

I liked the novel overall. Carroll knows her audiences and is one of the most accomplished Chick Lit writers. None of her novels are ever the same and with A Very Accidental Love Story, she’s written another novel no author has ever thought of writing and it was really good. I can’t wait to see what Carroll comes up with next. You just never know! I liked how that Eloise was uptight to begin with but as she and Ryan start a friendship, she starts to loosen up more and realise work isn’t all. (I actually felt sorry for poor Lily with no dad and a pretty much absent mum, though I understand that obviosuly Eloise had to work.) I’d very much recommend the novel, Claudia Carroll is such an accomplished Chick Lit author and I can’t wait for her next novel, she’s very much on my pre-order list.