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Win tea with Sophie Kinsella at Play.com

Okay, so how many of us here are Shopaholic fans? Play.com are offering a great prize to one lucky winner and a friend in celebration of the Secret Dreamworld of a Shopaholic re-release, and there's still time to enter.

Here's what you could win:

To celebrate the re-release of The Secret Dreamworld Of A Shopaholic, we are delighted to offer one lucky winner and friend a fabulous shopaholic trip to London in the summer! You'll be staying at the glamourous Berkeley Hotel, where you'll be indulged with their 'Girls Night In' package. The next day, The Berkeley treats you to Prêt-a-Portea, a true fashionistas afternoon tea with biscuits and cakes inspired by the latest fashion collections including Christian Louboutin and Lanvin. But that's not all... Sophie Kinsella will join you!

For the chance to win this fantastic prize, head on over to Play.com to enter.

The competition closes on March 29 – good luck!

HELEN'S HEROINES: Samantha Sweeting

Helen Redfern's weekly look at the fictional women she loves...

Even though I was highly entertained by The Undomestic Goddess by Sophie Kinsella, I didn’t feel the main character, Samantha, was inspirational. She is clever and in a position of great importance, soon to be a partner of a law firm, yet I felt, a tad stupid at real life. As the story unfolds the message her character expressed to me is that women cannot cope with highly stressful jobs and should stay out of the city. Then, she is waiting for a man to ‘save her’. I thought this was a book with a plot set in the dark ages only dressed up as modern because the woman has a fancy career.

Yet when I was talking to a few of my friends this woman came up as a good inspirational character. A woman who had inspired them to look at their life differently and make a few changes. So I looked at her afresh. I saw she had turned her life around. She didn’t put up with the pompousness of city life. She saw through it and realised that there is more to life than working yourself to the bone. And maybe there is something in that. I gave up my city job when I’d had my child as I couldn’t face the politics, the egos, the trying to impress someone all the time. Until I rediscovered my love of writing I was disappointed with myself giving up on my old career, so maybe I was transferring some of these issues onto the unsuspecting Samantha. But then it isn’t a sleight at the feminist movement to not work all hours and have a brilliant city career. True equality surely means a woman has a choice.

Samantha Sweeting is a workaholic. Her working life is divided and dictated by six minute chunks. Every six minutes she is supposed to bill a client. She doesn’t have time for anything else. For sorting out her home life, for life with family, or even for having a life.  As Samantha says “You get used to measuring your life in little chunks. And you get used to working. All the time.”

Samantha is also highly intelligent. She has a fantastic head for figures but her office looks like a bomb has hit it. When she realises she has made a mistake she leaves the office in a daze and walks onto the nearest train, finding herself at the door of a household that requires a housekeeper. She is undomesticated, in her own words she admits “OK, maybe I can’t sew on a button. But I can restructure a corporate finance agreement and save my clients thirty million pounds.” This fails to impress her neighbour leaving Samantha to call out “Did you never hear of feminism?” And Samantha is right. Why should it be expected that women be domesticated. But by the same argument why are domesticated women seen as letting the feminist side down?

Of all the characters I have studied for this column, so far, Sophie Kinsella’s creation has been the character I have had to think about the most. She is not straightforwardly brave, like George Kirrin, or Nancy Drew. She isn’t doing a dangerous job like Tonks, or Jane Rizzoli. In this day and age where much is expected of women in the working world but there still aren’t the same opportunities as men, it is incredibly brave of Samantha to take on the law firm that accused her of messing up a £50 million deal, to clear her name, but then to turn her back on the partnership and the money for a calmer life. The man in the story didn’t save her. He just demonstrated that there is more to life than working. Samantha saw she had a choice and saved herself.

More Helen's Heroines

(Shopaholic) MOVIE NEWS: Hugh Dancy *is* Luke!

It's still not listed on IMDb, but the most recent newsletter from Sophie Kinsella seems to confirm it:

... the Shopaholic movie is finally underway! I have been in New York recently, attending rehearsals, talking to the actors, director and producers, and seeing the story come alive before my eyes... and it's given me goosebumps :) Isla Fisher, Hugh Dancy and Krysten Ritter are going to be SO fabulous as Becky, Luke and Suze.

Surely Sophie knows who's playing Luke?

Related posts: More Shopaholic casting news | First photo of Shopaholic movie

BOOK REVIEW: Remember Me? by Sophie Kinsella

Reviewed by Deborah Riccio

It's not the waking up in hospital that freaks out Lexi Smart. It's the fact that she's got nails to die for, porcelain veneers, a glossy mane of hair, a Louis Vuitton handbag, she's Manager of a whole department ... and, oh yes, she's married to a drop-dead gorgeous millionaire husband.

The only drawback she can see is that she's aged three years.  But then so has her mother and (not-so-now) little sister.

How the hell did all that happen?

And what happened to the last three years?

As she begins to read the Marriage Manual written by her practically perfect husband, Lexi begins to wonder whether she will ever miss her crooked teeth, frizzy hair, loser boyfriend, crappy job and poverty-lifestyle. Ah� and her best friends and co-workers who now seem to quite simply hate her.

What has she done? What�s happened? Who is that great-looking guy in the black jeans? And why can�t she find any bread or crisps when she so desperately needs them?

The incomparable Sophie Kinsella's latest stand-alone novel is an utterly believable suspended-belief story with endearingly drawn characters which I defy anyone not to want to devour in one sitting. From the first page you'll feel a part of Lexi's life and be urging her to find the answers she so passionately needs to start piecing together her missing years.

Rating: 5/5

Like this? Try Forget About It by Caprice Crane

First photo of Shopaholic movie

I know it's only tiny, but since it's the first photo from the eagerly-awaited Shopaholic movie, I thought it was worth sharing.

Yes, it's Isla Fisher as Becky Bloomwood. And, yes, it's being filmed in New York. We're just going to have to accept it. And there's still no announcement of who's playing Luke!

[via BuzzSugar]

Related posts: Shopaholic & Baby review | Sophie Kinsella in Second Life

Sophie Kinsella in Second Life

I still don't understand Second Life, but I guess I don't have to.

On Sunday, 2 March at 5PM EST, Sophie Kinsella will be appearing at The Amphitheatre on Bantam Dell Island.

There she will read from her new novel, Remember Me? and take questions from readers. You'll even be able to dress her avatar. Dress her avatar?! Seriously. What on earth is Second Life all about?!

Click here for the full details.

MOVIE NEWS: More Shopaholic casting news

You probably all know by now that Isla Fisher is playing Becky Bloomwood in the Shopaholic movie (now in pre-production), but I've just checked on IMDb and found out who's on board for Luke and Suze. And I'm not happy.

Luke will be played by Hugh Dancy (The Jane Austen Book Club). I haven't seen him in anything, but judging by the photos he's a tad less masculine than I imagined Luke to be. (But I can't see Luke as anyone other than Colin Firth, so it might just be me.)

Krysten Ritter will play Suze.  If you're a Gilmore Girls fan, then you'll know Krysten as Rory's really annoying Yale friend. I don't know who I'd cast as Suze, but I don't think it would be her.

What do you think?

BOOK COVER: Cathy Kelly (and more Kinsella)

So last week I featured the UK cover of Sophie Kinsella's next book and said it looked just like someone else's. You kindly made a bunch of suggestions, all of which were similar, but none of them was the droid I was looking for. (I'm not really a dork, I just love that quote.)

Fortunately, I'd been googling Marian Keyes, saw a pic of her with Cathy Kelly and went "A-ha!" (I needn't have bothered, since not long after Helen Costello left a comment saying it was Cathy Kelly - Thanks, Helen!)

But I said it was a bit old-hat, didn't I? And Cathy Kelly's publishers obviously agree since her covers have been updated. Check them out over the cut. 

On the left is Lessons In Heartbreak due out in January next year. Much more modern cover, I'm sure you'll agree (if a little Adele Parks...).

Oh and Helen also referred to Cathy Kelly's old covers "with the really sad eighties looking woman on the front!" That's one on the right. She's not wrong, is she!

Related: Musical book covers

BOOK COVER: Remember Me?

I mentioned Sophie Kinsella's new book, Remember Me?, a little while ago and featured the American cover (right).

At the time, the UK cover wasn't on Amazon and now it is. That's it on the left. It's nice enough, but it seems a bit old hat to me. What do you think? (It also really reminds me of someone else's covers, but I can't put my finger on whose. Any ideas?)

Related posts: Chick Lit Heroine Grudge Match: Becky Bloomwood v Stephanie Plum | More Sophie Kinsella film news

BOOK NEWS: Remember Me? by Sophie Kinsella

Amnesia plotlines seem to be all the rage at the moment. Not only do we have Caprice Crane's fabulous Forget About It and Cecelia Ahern's TV show, Samantha Who?, Sophie Kinsella is getting in on the act with her latest stand-alone (i.e. non-Shopaholic) book, Remember Me?

It's the story of Lexi, who wakes up in a hospital bed after a car accident, thinking it's 2004 and she's a twenty-five-year old with crooked teeth and a disastrous love life. But, to her disbelief, she learns it's actually 2007 - she's twenty-eight, her teeth are straight, she's the boss of her department - and she's married! To a good-looking millionaire! How on earth did she land the dream life??! [via Amazon]

It's out in both the UK and US in February 2008. (That's the US cover, the UK one isn't up on Amazon yet, I wonder if I'll like it.)