Sophie Kinsella, the best-selling author behind the Confessions of a Shopaholic book series, has died after a battle with brain cancer. She was 55.
The British author, whose real name was Madeleine Sophie Wickham, sold more than 50 million books worldwide, including a popular series following the life of a fictional shopping-addicted woman in London.
Her family shared news of her death on social media on Wednesday, saying the author died peacefully, “with her final days filled with her true loves: family and music and warmth and Christmas and joy.”
Wickham’s literary agent also confirmed her passing to CBC News in an email.
The writer first announced that she had glioblastoma — an aggressive form of brain cancer — in April 2024, after she was first diagnosed in 2022.
At the time, Wickham said she was undergoing radiation therapy after having surgery. She told her fans that she delayed telling them about the diagnosis initially in order to give her family time to process the news adjust to their “new normal.”
Glioblastomas are the most common high-grade brain tumours among adults, according to the Brain Tumor Charity. The charity says only 25 per cent of patients live longer than a year after diagnosis, while only five per cent of patients survive more than five years.
“Despite her illness, which she bore with unimaginable courage, Sophie counted herself truly blessed — to have such wonderful family and friends, and to have had the extraordinary success of her writing career,” Wickham’s family wrote in the announcement. “She took nothing for granted and was forever grateful for the love she received.”
Journalist turned novelist
Wickham first worked as a financial journalist before turning to fiction.
She told author-publisher Zibby Owens on her podcast, Moms Don’t Have Time to Read Books, that the idea of writing never crossed her mind in early life.
“It wasn’t my childhood ambition. I wasn’t the child walking around saying, ‘I’m going to write a novel one day.'”
Wickham enrolled at Oxford University to study music but switched to the politics, philosophy and economics program after a year.
While working as a journalist, Wickham read to pass the time during her commute, and the idea to write fiction herself began to take shape on the train.
Wickham wrote more than 30 books over her career — some novels and some kids books — which have sold more than 45 million copies worldwide and have been translated into dozens of languages.
She published her debut novel, The Tennis Party, in 1995, under her real name. But it was her Shopaholic series and work under her pen name that made her best-known. The 10 books follow Rebecca Bloomwood, a financial journalist navigating life hurdles and her expensive taste, and the story was adapted into the 2009 movie Confessions of a Shopaholic starring Isla Fisher.
Her 2003 book Can You Keep a Secret? was adapted into a 2019 rom-com film by the same name starring Alexandra Daddario and Tyler Hoechlin.
Kinsella poses for photographers as she arrives for the British premiere of the film Confessions of a Shopaholic at Leicester Square in London on Feb. 16, 2009. (Andrew Winning/Reuters)
For a generation of women, Wickham wrote novels that fans found fun and relatable, pioneering the “chick lit” genre — like a rom-com in book form, where the heroine’s love story and personal development are equally important, and usually have a happily-ever-after-style ending.
“Sophie was able to … intricately weave together elements of slice-of-life nonsense, you know, like the day-to-day mishaps we get into as people, with heavy emotional themes,” rom-com author and screenwriter Alys Murray told CBC News.
Her characters were complex women who made lots of mistakes but remained “in charge of their own destinies,” Murray added — giving her readers permission to do the same.
Wickham sought to use shopping as a way to get at something deeper about life, as she told the Toronto Star in an interview from 2014.
“There is such a rich seam of comedy in shopping, because it epitomizes so many of our flaws,” she told the Star. “Using shopping as a lens is a great way to examine our delusions and denial, and how we justify all sorts of behaviour to ourselves.”
‘Eve’s story is my story’
Wickham’s last novel, What Does It Feel Like?, was a story that closely mirrored her own life — about a novelist who is learning to walk, talk and write again following major surgery to remove a brain tumour, while relearning what parts of life are really important to her.
“What Does It Feel Like? is fiction, but it is my most autobiographical work to date. Eve’s story is my story,” Wickham said of the book, which came out in October 2024.
In an interview with the New York Times, Wickham said she went through the same experience following her own brain surgery.
“When I woke up, I couldn’t walk. I couldn’t write my name. I couldn’t balance. I couldn’t turn my head,” Wickham told the paper in a 2024 interview. “For a while, it was this crashing blow every morning. You feel OK, then you remember.”
Wickham said in that interview that she kept a notebook beside her bed throughout the ordeal, however, because she knew it was something she wanted to write about.
Despite her personal hardship, Murray says Wickham will be remembered for the way she left readers feeling better when they put her books down than when they first picked them up.
“That is a legacy that all of us as writers should want to have. But I think she certainly deserves,” Murray said.