Why is sophie kinsella writing as madeleine wickham

I didn't really have a game plan. And then it just hit me that actually, I want to make it up. It was reading paperbacks on the way to work, thinking that's what I want to do. I was so, so determined not to write about a year-old journalist. It was going to have male characters, and middle-aged people, so I could say, look, I'm not just writing about my life, I'm a real author.

And if it fails, that's OK. Didn't she analyse the bestseller list and conclude that chick lit was the only way to make big money? My secret fear was that nobody would get this at all, and it would be really embarrassing. That's why I didn't go to my publishers and pitch it.

The idea of sitting down in their office and saying, 'I'd like to write about a girl with an overdraft who likes shopping and gets letters from her bank manager,' well it just sounded nuts. But I could just see it going on all around me; we all talked about shopping, we went shopping, the store card thing was massive, and I could see the hypocrisy of taking out the credit card, then being shouted at for not paying it off.

And nobody had done it. I thought, wait a minute, shopping has become the national pastime, and nobody has written about it. It felt very much like an experimental project. She submitted her first Sophie Kinsella manuscript, The Dreamworld of a Shopaholic, to her publishers without telling them it was actually by Madeleine Wickham.

It was not just a hit but a sensation. To her credit, the success of three further Shopaholic books didn't deter Kinsella from then writing standalone novels, in between further Shopaholic instalments. Her latest, I've Got Your Number, is another outside of the series, but its plot — about a young woman who finds a mobile phone and becomes entangled in its previous owner's life — reflects the author's same sharp eye for the zeitgeist.

It was just a very abstract idea — this thing is so powerful, it contains your whole world, and it links you to somebody in a way that 10 years ago would have been impossible. This tiny device gives an insight into every aspect of our lives, so as a novelist, my God, it's perfect. It's only this big! And yet it's got your business world and your romantic world and your emotional world.

It's all there. I've Got Your Number is cleverly plotted, highly engaging and romps along splendidly. I defy anyone stuck on a long-haul flight not to be happily diverted by the caper. And yet I kept finding myself distracted by misgivings about its version of femininity, which celebrates intuition over logic, emotional intelligence over success, and offers little that hasn't already been said in Pride and Prejudice — or, for that matter, Legally Blonde.

Why do chick-lit authors create ditzy heroines whose intelligence is strictly emotional — and even then a bit hit-and-miss — and whose preoccupations seldom extend beyond fashionable handbags and romantic fantasies. Kinsella is a self-possessed middle-class Londoner who met her husband on her first night at Oxford, and married him at 21; he is the headmaster of a private school, and they have four sons, joined by a daughter shortly after we meet.

She can hold her own at an Oxbridge high-table dinner — so why, I ask her, is so much chick lit written by highly intelligent, educated women?

You can be highly intelligent, and also ditzy and klutzy. You can be unable to cook, you can like lipstick. And I think it's more realistic to represent women having all these facets, than to say, OK, you're intelligent, so I've got to write you as all competent, which I think is an unfair ideal.

To have someone who never makes a mistake, never finds her personal life in disarray, never worries about work-life balance? Community Reviews.

Showing Average rating 3. Rating details. More filters. Sort order. Jul 27, Abby rated it did not like it. I am hugely disappointed with this book. It felt like there was no real storyline to it and instead I was just being told about the mundane lives of 4 different people.

Liz and her husband, Jonathon, have made an investment and need to sell their house to pay off the debts. Out of the blue, Marcus and Liz begin having an affair. The book is just messy.

Nothing really happens other than the characters live. Along with this, none of the characters are likeable. Jun 08, Divya Kurup added it. It was ok book not as per Sophie's standard!! May 29, Linda Lewis rated it it was ok. I has a hard time reading this book I did finish it but its not one of my favorites.

Ashley Scott rated it it was ok Feb 03, Rachel Tudor rated it it was amazing Mar 01, Kam Singh rated it really liked it May 12, Ilze K rated it it was ok Jun 24, Courtneylouise rated it really liked it Jul 01, Sarah rated it really liked it May 08, High Priestess rated it really liked it Oct 29, Alice rated it it was amazing Apr 19, Charlene rated it did not like it Jul 02, Bron Wyn rated it really liked it May 17, Jemma Hyde rated it it was amazing Sep 26, Sarah Owen rated it liked it May 05, Dee Green rated it it was amazing Oct 13, Jessica Ruth rated it liked it Nov 24, Michele rated it it was amazing Sep 24, Genevieve rated it it was ok Apr 27, Three friends who work at magazines meet once a month for cocktails and gossip.

In this book, she introduces Becky Bloomwood, a quirky and lovable character who has an addiction to shopping and an aversion to paying bills. Becky's adventures in life and love have also been adapted into a movie. When a mutual friend promises two families that they can use his Spanish villa the same week, a situation ensues.

Both families are surprised to find the other at the villa, and Chloe must spend the week with the man who broke her heart 15 years ago. In the sequel to "Confessions of a Shopaholic," Becky moves to New York with her boyfriend, Luke, and manages to make a mess of her credit cards and career when she is lured by new shops like Barneys and Sephora. In the third Shopaholic book, Becky must deal with her mother, soon-to-be mother in-law, and fiancee all while trying to plan the perfect wedding -- which, of course, involves a lot of shopping!

Emma Corrigan tells all her secrets to a stranger on a plane, which she figures is harmless. Of course, that stranger turns out to be the new CEO of her company, and Monday morning she has to deal with the repercussions of working with a man who knows everything about her. When Becky returns from her honeymoon, she finds out that she has a long-lost sister. She can't wait to meet her, but when she does, she finds out her sister hates shopping!

Can these two very different women bond? In the stress, she ends up applying to be a housekeeper even though she doesn't know how to cook and clean. She gets the job, then must work to pull her life together. Fans of the series will be delighted by Becky Brandon's adventures in pregnancy, but if you didn't like the first books, you'll probably be frustrated by this one as well.

Really, it is three years later. She can't remember those three years, but somehow she is a successful businesswoman with a handsome millionaire husband. Lexi tries to figure out how her life got this way and who she really is. She gets enlisted to find Sadie's missing necklace and must deal with the ghost and everyday life.

Sophie Kinsella announced that she planned to end her wildly popular Shopaholic series. Then, perhaps, she remembered how lucrative it is to write books that are sure to become bestsellers.

In "Mini Shopaholic" Becky must deal with a stubborn two-year-old with expensive tastes and tries to cheer up her husband by throwing him a surprise birthday party. She finds someone else's phone abandoned in a trash can and decides to use it to report her stolen ring, but the phone does much more.