“Confessions of a Shopaholic” Novelist Sophie Kinsella dies at the age of 55 | books

Madeleine Wickham, best known for writing the best-selling novel Confessions of a Shopaholic under her pseudonym Sophie Kinsella, has died at the age of 55.

Wickham, whom novelist Jojo Moyes called the “Queen of Romantic Comedies,” has written more than 30 books for adults, children and teens, which have sold more than 45 million copies.

In April 2024, Wickham announced that she had been diagnosed with glioblastoma, an aggressive type of brain cancer, at the end of 2022, and underwent radiotherapy and chemotherapy after surgery.

Wickham was born in London in 1969. She studied music at New College, Oxford, before turning to philosophy, politics and economics. After graduating, she became a financial journalist, but said she found the job boring. During the long drive to central London, she was reading paperbacks by the likes of Mary Wesley and Joanna Trollope, and began to want to write a book.

At the age of twenty-four, she wrote her first novel, The Tennis Party, about a group of friends who participate in a weekend tournament. “My biggest worry was that I hadn’t written my first autobiographical novel,” Wickham told The Guardian in 2012. “I was very determined not to write about a 24-year-old journalist. There were supposed to be male characters, middle-aged people, so I could say, ‘Look, I’m not just writing about my life, I’m a real author.’”

The Tennis Party was the first of seven novels Wickham wrote under her real name, published annually between 1995 and 2001, including Cocktails for Three, The Wedding Girl, Sleeping Arrangements, and Gatebreaker. Sleeping Arrangements has been adapted into a musical by Chris Burgess.

The author said Madeleine Wickham’s books are “somewhat different” from her later books by Sophie Kinsella. “They’re a little more serious, a little darker, and they’re all ensemble pieces without a main heroine, but they’re groups of characters whose lives are interconnected in some way.”

Wickham submitted her first written manuscript under the name Sophie Kinsella, The Secret Dream World of Shopaholics, without revealing her identity to her publishers. The book – called Confessions of a Shopaholic in Some Countries – was published in 2000 and became the first of 10 parts in the Shopaholic series. The stories follow Becky Bloomwood, a financial journalist with a spending problem. “I thought, ‘Wait a minute, shopping has become a national pastime, and nobody writes about it,'” Wickham said. “It seemed very much like a pilot project.”

The first and second novels of the series – the latter titled Shopaholics Abroad – were adapted for film. Confessions of a Shopaholic, directed by PJ Hogan and starring Isla Fisher and Hugh Dancy, was released in 2009.

Beginning in 2003, Wickham also published independent novels under the name Sophie Kinsella. These include Can You Keep a Secret? And the non-local goddess Remember Me? Her most recent independent work, published in 2023, is titled The Burnout, which she was inspired to write after experiencing it herself and seeing it “all over the world.” [her] Everywhere.” Protagonist Sasha goes to the Devon beach resort she loved as a child to recover from exhaustion, but finds the once grand hotel now rundown, and she must share the beach with an angry Finn.

“I have been encouraged by the wonderful response to The Burnout during a difficult time,” Wickham wrote in announcing her cancer diagnosis. Public messages of support have come from Fisher, who played Becky in Confessions of a Shopaholic, as well as romance writer Moyes and thriller writer Gillian McAllister.

Wickham’s novels have often been classified as “chick” novels, due to the romantic comedic situations in which his vulgar heroines often find themselves. However, Wickham took the term “chick lit” to mean “funny contemporary third-person novels.” “You can be very clever, and also corny and corny,” Wickham said. “You may not be able to cook, and you may love lipstick. I think it’s more realistic to represent women who have all of those sides.”

Wickham also created the Mummy Fairy and Me children’s book series, published between 2018 and 2020. In 2015, she wrote a young adult novel called Finding Audrey, about a teenage girl with social anxiety.

Wickham met her husband, Henry Wickham, on her first night at Oxford University, and married him when she was 21 years old. She left behind her husband and their five children.