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Sophie Kinsella, who has died at age 55, had a special talent for characters who persevered through the most embarrassing mishaps — often of their own making.
Here are five novels that helped keep readers laughing, and relating, over the past 30 years.
“The Tennis Party” (1995)
Fellow writers could only envy Kinsella’s success, how early it came and how seemingly easy. As the author would remember, she was a 24-year-old financial journalist who, while commuting by train one day, thought to herself, “I want to have a go at this, I want to write a book.” Within two years, she was the bestselling author of “The Tennis Party,” under her real name, Madeleine Wickham.
Released in the U.S. as “40 Love,” her debut novel centered on the misadventures of a weekend tennis party and introduced readers to her conversational touch about everything from love to money to … tennis.
“They all have a lot of baggage,” the author explained on her website. “They sleep with each other, they behave very badly, drink a lot of Pimms, thrash tennis balls around, and things come to a head quite intensely.”
“The Secret Dreamworld of a Shopaholic” (2000)
She published her first several books as Wickham, before becoming a global brand as “Sophie Kinsella.” Spurred by this first “Shopaholic” novel, millions would cheer on the hopelessly indebted financial journalist Becky Bloomwood, who helps keep the economy turning with her “investments” in clothing, household and other products.
Among the most cherished fantasies in her dreamworld: that some “dotty old woman in Cornwall” will mistakenly receive her “humongous” credit card bill and pay if off without checking the name. Becky, meanwhile, will be sent the woman’s bill for three tins of cat food, “which, naturally, I’ll pay without question.”
The 2009 film “Confessions of a Shopaholic,” based on the first two of Kinsella’s nine-novel series, starred Isla Fisher and Hugh Dancy.
“Can You Keep a Secret?” (2003)
As Kinsella, the novelist had a mission to get her characters in trouble. Emma Corrigan has a proper job as a marketing assistant and a proper and “heartbreakingly handsome” boyfriend. She is also prone to panic and distraction, to going about in public with her blouse unbuttoned or unleashing a spurt of soda on a client’s shirt. And she has a few secrets she would like to hold on to, whether it’s pouring orange juice on the plant of a colleague who annoys her or how she sometimes holds back laughter while having sex — “just normal, everyday little secrets.”
This book was adapted into a 2019 movie starring Alexandra Daddario and Tyler Hoechlin.
“The Undomestic Goddess”
(2005)
Her alliteratively named characters were ever fish out of water, sometimes on the driest land. Samantha Sweeting is a London lawyer who can’t take it anymore, boards a train to the countryside and finds herself working as a housekeeper, for which she has no known skills.
“I had so much fun charting Samantha’s comedy disasters in the kitchen, her battles with the ironing board, her gradual slowing down and relaxing and finding love,” the author writes on her website. “It’s a story of an uber-professional realizing there’s more to life than work, and starting to appreciate the little things.”
“Twenties Girl” (2009)
Just your typical supernatural adventure, in which 27-year-old Lara Lington is visited by the ghost of her flapper-great aunt Sadie and sent off to retrieve Sadie’s long-lost necklace. Subplots include Lara being dumped by her boyfriend and Lara wondering if she can succeed in business as a headhunter.
She also lies a lot, to her parents. Yes, her work is going great. Yes, she loved their Christmas gift. No, she doesn’t just subsist on pizza and yogurt and vodka. And so on: “Seven lies. Not including all the ones about Mum’s outfit.”
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