Product Description

Travel writer Claire Spencer doesn't believe in fate, much less any part of that fairy tale, happy ending, love at first sight stuff. Especially not for Amazon-sized women like her. So when Jack, the sexy man who sits next to her on a flight from New York to London, asks her out, Claire figures there has to be a catch. Is he blind? Sleazy? On the rebound? But she decides to accept, and finds herself smitten and a little frightened at how happy she is with how fast things are moving.

While in London (on assignment for Sassy Seniors! magazine), Claire is also looking forward to seeing her best friend, Maddy, one of those impossibly gorgeous, if-I-didn't-love-her-I'd-hate-her women who's got everything in the world going for her--except that, for the first time in her trouble-free life, Maddy has just been dumped...by Jack. Claire's finally met what seems to be the perfect guy, and now the only way she can have him is by betraying her best friend. It's almost enough to make Claire believe in Fate, but if Fate does exist, it seems intent on screwing her over.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #275824 in Books
• Published on: 2004-08-31
• Released on: 2004-08-31
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 384 pages

From the Inside Flap
Travel writer Claire Spencer doesn't believe in fate, much less any part of that fairy tale, happy ending, love at first sight stuff. Especially not for Amazon-sized women like her. So when Jack, the sexy man who sits next to her on a flight from New York to London, asks her out, Claire figures there has to be a catch. Is he blind? Sleazy? On the rebound? But she decides to accept, and finds herself smitten and a little frightened at how happy she is with how fast things are moving.

While in London (on assignment for Sassy Seniors! magazine), Claire is also looking forward to seeing her best friend, Maddy, one of those impossibly gorgeous, if-I-didn't-love-her-I'd-hate-her women who's got everything in the world going for her--except that, for the first time in her trouble-free life, Maddy has just been dumped...by Jack. Claire's finally met what seems to be the perfect guy, and now the only way she can have him is by betraying her best friend. It's almost enough to make Claire believe in Fate, but if Fate does exist, it seems intent on screwing her over.

About the Author
Whitney Gaskell grew up in Syracuse, New York. A graduate of Tulane Law School, she worked for several years as a reluctant lawyer before writing her first novel, Pushing 30, followed by True Love (and Other Lies); She, Myself & I; Testing Kate, and Mommy Tracked. She lives in Stuart, Florida, with her husband and son.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Chapter One


At the advanced age of thirty-two, I’ve learned enough about the world to have developed a well-established set of personal rules by which I live my life. Here is the first one: The whole concept of a One True Love Who Completes Your Soul is total bullshit.

I don’t mean love in general, of course—I love my parents, my sister, a few assorted friends, and Churchill, the English bulldog I had when I was growing up. I’m talking about the fairy-tale, Prince Charming, marriage-as-a-happy-ending, love- at-first-sight kind of thing. As far as I’m concerned, that’s a brand of snake oil concocted by the online dating and wedding industries for the sole purpose of bilking millions of unsuspecting women out of their hard-earned money. Maybe it’s because I don’t have any role models to look to who’ve actually sustained long-term love, much less successful marriages. My parents, and most of my friends’ parents, were of the generation who believed strongly in the power of divorce and remarriage as an alternative to buying a sports car when in the midst of a midlife crisis.

You could call me cynical, or jaded, or even a little bitter, and I wouldn’t argue with you. It’s not as though I arrived at my philosophy on love when I was thirteen and still thought I was going to marry the lead singer of Duran Duran. No, it took years and years of bad dates, horrible setups, and one real bastard of an ex-boyfriend for me to come to my senses.

Which is why I never imagined I would meet someone on an airplane. I mean, how random would that be? After all, in real life, lovers are not brought together by a quirk of fate, or by some random act that realigns the universe; most people who get together meet through friends, or work, or something equally mundane. Those syrupy tales of two halves of one heart reuniting are just Hollywood fairy tales, usually starring Meg Ryan, and marketed to women in my age, gender, and marital-status demographic. But I have always refused to buy into the hype, just as I refuse to transform my pin-straight hair into Meg’s adorably scruffy, Sally Hershberger–designed coif. So when I boarded the American Airlines flight from New York to London, my battered old knapsack slung over my shoulder (I never can pull off that glamorous world-traveler look—really, I’m only one small, scary step from completely throwing away my dignity and embracing the butt pack), the last thing I was expecting was romance. In fact, I was fully prepared for a boring, six-hour trip full of bad food and uncomfortable seats, and—if experience was any guide—a small child sitting behind me, screaming the whole way.

I snagged a window seat, and was glad that I only had to share one armrest. I had desperately hoped to get upgraded to business class—that Shangri-la for travelers, with its cushy seats, free drinks, and plentiful armrests—but the same grouchy airline employee who wouldn’t give me a seat in the emergency-exit row certainly had no interest whatsoever in upgrading me (he’d been far more accommodating to the Ricky Martin look-alike who’d been ahead of me in line, I’d noted). I was relieved when a middle-aged woman wearing a pashmina shawl and carrying a thick paperback sat in the empty seat next to me. I usually get seated next to obese men who have personal odor problems and who snore so loudly they actually drown out the roar of the jet engines. This woman tended in the other direction—as thin as a greyhound and marinated in Obsession perfume—but still, a definite improvement. Or so I thought.

Shortly after takeoff, the woman began twisting around to whine to her husband, who was sitting directly behind her, about how her back was hurting her and why couldn’t the airlines provide orthopedic pillows, and how could he not have remembered to pack his blue jacket, and why hadn’t the airline honored her request to sit next to an empty seat so she could stretch out during the flight, and had she known they were going to stick someone next to her, she would have rather sat with her husband. Considering her tone, her husband’s weary answers, and the fact that every time the woman turned around she knocked me in the side with her pointy little elbow, I was starting to suspect that the husband had lucked out by not having to sit next to her. It was probably the first peace and quiet he’d had since marrying her (not that she showed any intention of leaving him alone to enjoy it). On her third go-round, this time lodging a complaint on the too-cold temperature of the airplane, I heard the man sitting behind me offer to trade places with her so that she and her husband could sit together.

“Oh, thank you. We would have booked our seats together, but I was supposed to have an empty seat next to me. But then they sat this woman here,” she said, her voice laced with self-righteous indignation, as she shot me a dirty look.

I returned her dirty look—a skill I could win a gold medal in—and Mrs. Pointy Elbow was properly chastened . . . or scared, I actually couldn’t tell which, as I’ve been told that my signature dirty look is quite intimidating. I base it on a combination of Jack Nicholson in A Few Good Men (“You can’t handle the truth!”) and Hillary Clinton when she thinks no one is watching her, with just a hint of Clint Eastwood as Dirty Harry thrown in for some color. In any event, Mrs. Pointy Elbow averted her eyes and stopped complaining—for the moment—and turned her attention to collecting her things. It took her a while, a laborious process of gathering her book and newspaper and purse and pillow and blanket together, all while this guy was standing in the aisle, waiting patiently for her to finally clear out of what was now his seat.

To my surprise, the guy was cute, in a scruffy sort of way. I hadn’t noticed him in the airport lounge when we were waiting to board, but then he wasn’t exactly a head-turner. He was tall and lanky, although not skinny, thank God (I can’t deal with men who have thinner thighs than I do). He had a long, angular face, shaggy dark blond hair in need of a trim, and his too-long nose was slightly crooked, as if it had never been properly set after being broken. From the barely noticeable lines fanning out from the corners of his eyes, I guessed his age to be about thirty-six or -seven—definitely on my side of forty. It wasn’t until he smiled at the woman as she thanked him for changing seats with her that I was struck by how appealing he was—his smile lit up his whole face, his grin open and genuine, his eyes crinkling pleasantly. And I don’t normally go for blond men—there’s something too California-ish, too frat-rat about them, too much like Jeff Spicoli in Fast Times at Ridgemont High. But this guy was more Owen Wilson than Sean Penn.

And his considerable height was a definite plus. Men who are shorter than I am face automatic elimination under the rules set forth in the Official Claire Spencer Dating Handbook. It’s not that I’m prejudiced against petite men—it’s just that the last time I went out with one of them, my date spent the evening saying things like “Wow, you’re a lot of woman, aren’t you,” and then challenged me to an arm-wrestling competition over dinner. Around the time I turned twenty-five—about the same point I stopped slouching in a misguided attempt to appear dainty—I decided that I would no longer date short men, and this policy has saved me an enormous amount of humiliation. Now I only have to deal with my good friend Max Levy, who doesn’t reach five foot six in his cowboy boots, and who is always trying to get me to dance with him so that he can act out the scene in Sixteen Candles where Long Duck Dong rests his head on the massive bosom of his “sexy American girlfriend.” Needless to say, I don’t find this nearly as funny as he does.

My new seatmate folded his long frame into the seat next to mine, slouching down like a teenager, and, to my complete humiliation, caught me checking him out.

“Looks like we’re stuck together,” he said while smiling pleasantly at me.

“Hmmm,” I said, and to cover for my previous ogling, gave him a polite, dismissive smile, before hiding behind my copy of Elle Decor.

But he wasn’t put off. “I’m Jack,” he said, holding his hand out sideways.

“Claire,” I replied, taking his hand.

It was awkward to shake hands in the narrow space, but actually I was secretly pleased at the attention. Even though I don’t believe in the One True Love thing, I’m not against a little harmless flirting now and then—it’s all a matter of controlling your expectations. I did wish that I’d dressed in something a little more glamorous than my favorite jeans and a black turtleneck sweater, and that I’d worn my contact lenses instead of my horn-rimmed glasses, but I’d been hoping to catch a little sleep on the plane, and so had dressed for comfort, not for a date. At least my hair was clean, and freshly blown out, and I was reasonably sure that my makeup was still intact.

Oh God, what am I doing? Don’t even think about it, I told myself. I’m sure I’m not his type. He’s all preppy and outdoorsy looking, and he probably goes for skinny women who like to run marathons and go camping. Certainly not someone like me.

Because the thing is, I’m big. Big. I’m very tall for a woman, five feet ten inches from head to toe, and hardly fall into the current beauty ideal of being Gwyneth Paltrow thin. I’m big all over—big arms, big hands, big feet, big boobs, big hips, and one of my thighs is probably about the same size as Gwynnie’s entire body. It’s not tha...

Customer Reviews

true dislike
I won't go into the main plot of this book as other reviewers have covered this ground.

I have to say that I found this book hard going to finish. The disappointing thing is that there were some poignant parts and with a little more consideration it could have been a lot better. Five things I disliked about this book were:

1. I couldn't like the main character (Claire). She was petty and bigoted (I advise anyone over the age of 50 to avoid this book like the plague as it is assured to offend). Any author using the phrase "the British" or "the Americans" or any other generalisation should stop and think whether they are about to write a well worn cliche that is offensive to a group of people to whom they do not belong. Whilst not offensive enough to make the recipient want to pull out their hair in anguish, they are definitely groan worthy. Instead of making the tired gibe at warm beer and bad food, why not make a comment on how unexpectedly tastey the traditional british dish of chicken korma was.

2. Far from being likable, Claire was obnoxious. Character traits included self-absorption, maliciousness (to co-workers) and condescension. The fact that two of the co-workers were painted as dislikeable characters, doesn't mean that she should stoop to the same level. For most of the book I found myself wondering what the love interest(Jack) saw in her, until the reader was informed that he orchestrated the accidental meeting with Claire, the best friend of a woman (Maddy) he was about to dump and even when given the opportunity to admit that he knew who Claire was when they first met, failed to do so. Maddy's character swung from bubbly and likeable, to questionable, to hellion to supposedly likeable again. Her reaction to the betrayal in the book appeared more in keeping with Claire. Rather than feeling like there was depth to the character it felt a little confused.

3. Why is it that for most of the book we are informed that Claire is no beauty unlike Maddy and then at the end this switches so that Claire is really a Titian beauty it was just her low self worth (then why is she so condescending)that influenced the description and Maddy is washed out. The twist of the ugly duckling really being a swan is tired and damned annoying. Lead characters don't have to be drop dead gorgeous, this is not Hollywood.

4. Despite the fact that Claire is lazy, an office malcontent and has a bad interview for what you could only suppose was a job that was extremely sought after, she gets the job. Why? The plot did not need this and it is unrealistic.

5. Not every person has to live happily ever after. It's a bit too much, I suppose, to ask that the lead characters fail to end as a couple, but does the book have to end with the neat and tidy two best friends hooking up with a love interest too. Let's not forget that the male best friend (Max) wouldn't commit to his partner because he was in love with Claire. Only when Claire said "no chance" did he return his affections to his second choice. Now that's what I call low self esteem.

3 1/2 stars
True Love (and other Lies) is a cute, fluff story. I read it while being laid up after knee surgery- it's great light reading for when you're brain's not functioning that well... The plot reminded me of Kinsella's Can You Keep a Secret. Claire meets Jack on a flight to London, and sparks fly (just like Kate and Jack in CYKaS). The plot is very predictable but still light, fluffy fun. I liked Claire; she was a relatable and likeable heroine. I liked Max, her quirky next-door neighbor, best friend. Like a Kinsella read, there were multiple f-s and the love scenes were pretty low-key, low smut. Nothing too detailed or embarrassing...

Though not an outstanding read, it worked for my circumstances. It would a good light read for a long car trip, plane ride, or a trip to the beach. I'm interested to find another by Ms. Gaskell that would be as good or a better read. Any recommendations for which book to read next, let me know! Pushing 30 looks the most intriguing...

A feel good story with real emotional pull!
I know some people decry this kind of book, but I think the world needs more books like this. I read chick lit for fun. My job is so serious and demanding that when I have time to read, sometimes I just need light fiction, something to read on the train and completely escape both work and the problems, and the messy solutions of the world. This book was IDEAL for me this week!

I really liked Claire Spencer, and her friends and family, and even when the plot took some rather strange turns, I was laughing and rooting for Claire and Jack the whole way. IAnd I was ready to cry and sulk with her too. Most of all, I love finishing a book and wishing that I had someone like the main character in my circle of friends. I think that Whitney Gaskell created a very lovable and memorable character in Claire Spencer.