London. Sophie Kinsella, the author of Confessions of a Shopaholic and a series of romantic sequels that sold millions of copies, died on Monday, her family reported. She was 55 years old and had been diagnosed with brain cancer.
The family said in a statement on Kinsella’s Instagram account: “We are heartbroken to announce the passing this morning of our beloved Sophie (also known as Maddy, also known as Mummy). She died peacefully, with her last days filled with her true loves: family, music, warmth, Christmas and joy.
Kinsella, who also published under her real name, Madeleine Wickham, announced in April 2024 that she had been diagnosed in late 2022 with glioblastoma, an aggressive form of brain cancer.
“I didn’t share this before because I wanted to make sure my children could hear and process the news in privacy and adapt to our ‘new normal’,” she said at the time.
Starting in 2000 with The Secret Dreamworld of a Shopaholic, titled Confessions of a Shopaholic in the United States, Kinsella published 10 novels in the Shopaholic series, as well as other works of fiction. Her books have sold over 45 million copies worldwide and have been translated into dozens of languages.
The first two books of
Shopaholic were adapted into the 2009 film
Confessions of a Shopaholic, starring Isla Fisher and Hugh Dancy.
From Journalism to Fiction
Kinsella did not grow up with the intention of being a writer. One of three girls born to teachers in London, she played piano and violin as a child and also composed music.
She told author and editor Zibby Owens on her podcast
Moms Don’t Have Time to Read Books that the idea of writing never crossed her mind. “It wasn’t my childhood ambition. I wasn’t the girl who walked around saying, ‘One day I’m going to write a novel.’”
Kinsella enrolled at the University of Oxford to study music, but switched to the politics, philosophy, and economics program after a year.
While at university, she met local musician Henry Wickham and fell in love. The couple had four sons and a daughter.
After graduating, Kinsella began working as a financial journalist and spent her commute reading. The idea of writing fiction began to take shape on the train.
She published her first novel,
The Tennis Party, in 1995, when she was 24 years old, under the name Madeleine Wickham. Shortly after, she left journalism to focus on writing. Six more books followed, including
The Gatecrasher and
Sleeping Arrangements.
Success of Shopaholic
A seemingly normal shopping outing inspired the idea for her first novel
Shopaholic: “I remember looking around and thinking… ‘We all shop… we talk about it. We do it. We rejoice in it. We make bad decisions. Why has no one written about this?’” said Kinsella in 2019 on the podcast
The Sunday Salon with Alice-Azania Jarvis.
Kinsella created the story of Becky Bloomwood, a twenty-something financial journalist with debts due to a shopping habit that she cannot (or does not want to) abandon. The novel included hilarious correspondence with debt collectors and banks, where Becky made excuses for late payments.
Kinsella told The Associated Press that the letters were “one of the most fun parts to write.”
There was also a love story with a handsome businessman that Becky met on an assignment. In later books she married him and had a “mini-shopaholic” daughter.
Confessions of a Shopaholic had a different tone and style from her previous books, so she decided to send it to her publishers under the pseudonym Sophie Kinsella. Her middle name was Sophie and Kinsella was her mother’s maiden name.
The editors accepted, and
Shopaholic was published in 2000 under her pseudonym. The novel, which combines humor with a cautionary tale about getting into debt, was an immediate success.
“Becky was like a pioneer in realizing that all this easy credit can bring problems,” Kinsella told the AP.
Kinsella also wrote
The Undomestic Goddess,
Remember Me? and
Twenties Girl. In 2015, she released a novel for young adults,
Finding Audrey, followed by the children’s series
My Mummy Fairy and Me.
Her novel
Can You Keep a Secret? was adapted into a film in 2019, starring Alexandra Daddario and Tyler Hoechlin. Her latest book was
The Burnout, published in 2023.
Illness and Hope
In November 2022, after experiencing symptoms such as memory loss, headaches, and balance problems, Kinsella was diagnosed with glioblastoma, a disease for which there is no cure. She kept the news private until April 2024. In an interview with presenter Robin Roberts, broadcast a few months later, Kinsella said she was focused on living in the moment.
“I’ve already lived more than the average. That’s how we move forward. We hope,” he said.
After her diagnosis, she wrote a short novel,
What Does It Feel Like, about a woman with five children who has brain cancer.
“I thought people might be curious to know what it’s like to go through this,” Kinsella told Roberts. “I hope it’s full of optimism and, above all, love.”
