Who is Sophie Kinsella

Sophie Kinsella graduated with a politics, philosophy and economics degree from Oxford and began her career as a financial journalist in a pensions magazine. During this time, she decided to begin writing fiction under her real name, Madeleine Wickham. The books were mainly set in the country, detailing the lives of villagers.

These books received a modicum of success and so she decided to change her style completely, and to begin writing under a pen-name, Sophie Kinsella. She took Sophie from her middle name and Kinsella from her mother's maiden name.

Published in 2000, "The Secret Dreamworld of a Shopaholic" ("Confessions of a Shopaholic" in the US) brought Ms. Kinsella instant success. The racy, funny adventures of her central character, Becky Bloomwood, and her bank account sold millions and more success followed with Shopaholic Abroad (2001) and Shopaholic Ties the Knot (2002).

In 2003, Kinsella wrote a new book with a new character. "Can You Keep A Secret?" introduces readers to Emma Corrigan, a young woman with a huge heart, an irrepressible spirit, and a few little secrets.

In 2004, she was asked to contribute and be a part of the chick-lit collection, "Girls' Night In", a book published to raise funds for the War Child Foundation. Kinsella contributed a short story called "Changing People".

While her plans were to leave Shopaholic as a trilogy, the popularity of the books brought the long-awaited sequels, "Shopaholic and Sister" and "Shopaholic and Baby". These books easily followed the success of the others in the series.

In 2006, Sophie published another non-Shopaholic book, "The Undomestic Goddess". The book tells of a high-flying London lawyer, Samantha Sweating, whose career takes a sudden turn, finding herself in a totally different world from her own. As with her other novels, this book went straight to the best-sellers list.

She resides in England with her husband, Henry, a classics teacher, and her sons, Freddy, Hugo and Oscar.