I’ve always had something of a love/hate/fascination thing going on with fortune telling. I’ve a couple of friends who are die-hard about this – their lives just don’t work without their monthly forecast.
I’ve heard all the predictions, everything from, “You vil meet ze tall, dark, handsome…” to “Honey, you know that road trip you were planning next week? Well, don’t.” Uh, my friend did, and she really shouldn’t have, thank God it was only a minor accident.
But, whether it’s just a matter of playing the odds or even if the power of suggestion is subconsciously enabling these predictions to come true or not, there’s certainly something fascinating about the prospect of (maybe) knowing what’s coming around the corner.
Not so much for my heroine in Second-Guessing Fate
Gemma’s just your everyday girl carrying a dream in one pocket and a healthy dollop of wariness in the other. Her best friend’s a little obsessive about living life according to the predictions of Madame Hooch, but hey, no one’s perfect!
She’s had her share of heartbreak (and then some) but who hasn’t? Right?
And if things have been a little slow on the dating front these last couple of years, well, what’s a girl to do? Put her energy and passion into growing her catering business, that’s what.
But then Gemma’s friend drags her off to Madame Hooch for a little fortune telling therapy. She doesn’t really believe in all that mumbo jumbo, but seriously! She hasn’t even met the guy yet and he’s going to dump her? That’s enough to make any girl mad enough to get even. In this case, it means tricking the gorgeous Nick into dumping her sooner rather than later. There’s a soul mate on the line if Madame Hooch is to be trusted. Unfortunately she’s up against Fate and things don’t go quite according to plan.
I had so much fun writing this book! Gemma has to get herself dumped before Fate plays its trump card and leaves her heartbroken. She’s not sure how she got into this situation, she doesn’t even believe the future can be predicted, but suddenly she’s playing a game and the prize is a soul mate she never gave much thought to before.
I’ve only been to a fortune teller twice, dragged both times by obsessed friends. I don’t seriously give it much credence, but I’ve had fun along the path of my life, smiling wickedly when some of the things come true and quirking a brow when the exact opposite unfolded.
My fortune-teller saw travel in my future, and I’ve moved continents three times. So far. She also predicted a couple of mind-boggling awesomeness stuff that, um, I’m still waiting on, lol.
What about you? I’d love to hear your fortune telling stories, or stories that happened to a friend of friend!
If you’re up for a fun read this summer as Gemma tries to outwit fate and get herself dumped, you can read more about Second-Guessing Fate here on Carina Press or pop along to my Website for a longer excerpt.
Claire Robyns lives in Berkshire, England, with her husband and twin boys. For so long as she has memories, she was either reading, dreaming about reading, or planning what she’d be reading next. Then one day she started dreaming about writing and that was the beginning of an amazing journey.
When Claire isn’t thigh-deep in laundry, shopping, cooking and general crowd control, you’ll find her head-and-heart-deep in the tangled lives of her characters.
Visit Claire at her website www.clairerobyns.com or on twitter @clairerobyns
“Honey, you can bare whatever you want. I’m not dropping my pants for anyone else.” Bastian’s rich butterscotch voice held a note of iron. “You’ve talked about my sex life, or lack thereof, quite enough to a certain writer who shall remain nameless.”
higher. “I do like anticipation, the building excitement, the pulse-pounding, breathless wait for that one moment when everything—” She dropped her eyes to his zipper “— and I do mean everything, comes together at the end.”
What looks like a historical, but smells like a fantasy and acts like a science fiction? 
Mechanical people fire our imagination from I Robot to the Stepford Wives. The concept of what it means to be human and whether synthetic life forms can develop humanity was explored in great depth in Battlestar Galactica. Is the quality of humanity judged by the ability to reason or is it necessary to feel emotions? If a created being develops emotions such as love, does it also require a certain spark—call it the soul—to be more than a replicant?
I knew I was getting close to the typical response time for Carina, and Angela was teasing on Twitter about making calls, after sending, like, 329 rejections. I didn’t get a rejection, and Carina Press was following me on Twitter. So I actually bated my breath and waited for the phone to ring.
Is it just me or are we all subconsciously influenced by our surroundings? I ask because I was brought up on the Isle of Wight in the south of England, literally a stone’s throw from Queen Victoria’s Island retreat where she and her extended family spent so much time. We also have Carisbrooke Castle where Charles 1 was incarcerated, until they carted him off to London and chopped his head off, that is. Ouch! Add to that an abundance of castles, Roman ruins and so many ancestral homes that they seem almost commonplace, and I suppose it’s little wonder that I always wanted to read and write about bygone times.
