Sophie Kinsella Shopaholic series

Sophie Kinsella's real name is Madeleine Wickam, but she was born Madeleine Townley, in 1969, in London England.
She is a graduate of Putney High School and New College, Oxford (where she studied philosophy, politics and economics).

She used to work as a financial journalist before she started writing fiction, and she wrote her first novel at the tender age of 24. The book was called The Tennis Party, and she wrote this book under her real name (Madeleine Wickham by then), and it immediately became a best seller. This encouraged Madeleine to write six more books (A Desirable Residence, Swimming Pool, Sunday, The Gatecrasher, The Wedding Girl, Coctails for Three and Sleeping Arrangements) under her real name.
While all these books were moderately successful, Kinsella (or Wickham, rather) was not satisfied. She decided to change her writing style completely and started writing books under a new name: Sophie Kinsella.

All the Shopaholic books are published under the name Sophie Kinsella, and Wickham's real identity was not revealed until 2005.

Sophie Kinsella has two residences: one in London and one in Hertfordshire. She has a husband and four sons: Freddy, Hugo, Oscar, and Rex.

The first book in the Shopaholic series by Sophie Kinsella was called The Secret Dreamworld of a Shopaholic (but was also released under the name Confessions of a Shopaholic) and was released in 2000.
The books main protagonist is Becky Bloomwood, who - like Madeleine Wickham herself in the past - works as a financial journalist, despite not quite having her own personal finances under control. But her biggest problem is that she cannot stop buying new clothes, shoes and other "girly" things, which makes her debts larger by the day.

Becky struggles with her finances but does seem to be able to get things under control at the end of the book, largely due to the help of her friend Susan Cleath-Stuart. She also gets a new job as a financial advice guru on a tv show, and meets PR mogul Luke Brandon (of Brandon Communications) and starts dating him.

The entire Shopaholic series has been optioned by a studio in Hollywood but only Confessions of a Shopaholic has been made into a movie so far. The movie Confessions of a Shopaholic premiered on February 13, 2009 and Isla Fisher played Becky Bloomwood in it.

There were quite a few differences between the movie and the first book:
Becky is a brunette in the books, but in the movie, she seems to be a redhead, as well as American (she is of course, British, in the books, like Madeleine Wickham). The scarf that has a big part in both the book and the movie is green in the movie, but blue and grey in book, and so on.

The second book (released in 2002) in the Shopaholic series is called Shopaholic Takes Manhattan (the US version) or Shopaholic Abroad (the UK version). In this book, Becky and her boyfriend move to New York for a while, and Becky gets a bit carried away with the shopping again. A new city means new stores to visit, after all...
But in the end, Becky curbes her shopping urges and starts working as a personal shopper for Barney's in Manhattan instead.

The third book (released in 2002) is called Shopaholic Ties the Knot, and it is all about Becky's upcoming wedding to Mr Luke Brandon.

The 4th book (released in 2004) is a bit different compared to the first 3, even though Becky Bloomwood and all the other characters of the book are the same. The book is called Shopaholic and Sister, and in it, Becky finds out that she has a sister she never knew of on her father's side. Unfortunately, Becky and her sister could not be more different...

The fifth book (released in 2007) is called Shopaholic and Baby, and is of course about a new stage in Becky's life...

The last book (so far) was released in September 2010 and is called Mini Shopaholic. In this book, Becky's little baby has already arrived and is helping her shop.

Hopefully, the last 5 books will also be made into movies at some point.

Sophie Kinsella has a web site you can visit for more information on her and her projects and work. The url is: sophiekinsella.co.uk