Bertie's daughter books $1m deal
Cecilia Ahern, at 21, has become a millionaire author overnight before even finishing her first novel.
And now Hollywood producers, who want to turn her first book "PS I Love You" into a movie, are knocking at her door. "I'm thrilled," she said yesterday. "I wasn't expecting anything like this. I won't get it all at once, it'll be over a long period of time. But I haven't slept since I heard the news."
While she secured a publishing deal in Britain for a six-figure sum last month, she has just clinched a $1m two-book contract with US publishing giant Hyperion.
Her literary agent, Marianne Gunne O'Connor, said yesterday she was stunned at the quality of Cecilia's writing when she first read them just two months ago.Now she is stirring up huge interest in the US, where her agent says the book will be a huge hit.
"The interest has been absolutely incredible she is one of those gems who comes along every so often," Ms Gunne O'Connor said. "I pitched her as the rock chick of fiction and felt her natural audience would be the kind of market who watch programmes like Friends," she said.
Cecilia, who has been writing for pleasure since 14, has just graduated with a journalism degree and lives at home with her mother Miriam in Malahide, Co Dublin.
She insists that the $1m payout won't alter the delicate creative process of writing if anything it will help.
"It's given me a great deal of confidence in my writing," she told Pat Kenny on RTÉ radio yesterday. The book deals with the subject of bereavement and centres on a 29-year-old woman called Holly, whose boyfriend Gerry dies of a brain tumour. He leaves her a letter for each month of the year after his death, in which he details things she needs to do to improve her life. It is due to hit the shelves in the spring of 2004.
"It's a heartbreaking story but I try to make it heart-warming as well," she said. "My favourite author is Marian Keyes." Oh, and just one last thing, fellas. She does have a boyfriend.
