Madeleine Wickham.
Photo: David Levenson/Getty Images
Madeleine Wickham, who often wrote under the pen name Sophie Kinsella, is dead at 55. Wickham wrote over 30 novels over the course of three decades, including the ever-enduring Shopaholic series, a high-water mark of witty, heartfelt work in the chick-lit genre that she helped popularize. Wickham was diagnosed with glioblastoma in 2022 and told her fans about her diagnosis and treatments for the aggressive form of brain cancer in 2024.
Wickham died in London on December 10, and her family shared the news on her Instagram account that day. “We are heartbroken to announce the passing this morning of our beloved Sophie (aka Maddy, aka Mummy),” it reads. “She died peacefully, with her final days filled with her true loves: family and music and warmth and Christmas and joy.” She is survived by her husband Henry Wickham and their five children.
Wickham was an Oxford grad working as a financial journalist in London when she began writing novels, at first under her own name. The first book, The Tennis Party, was a best seller in 1995, and she continued to release novels under her name throughout the ’90s until she anonymously submitted The Secret Dreamworld of a Shopaholic to publishers under the “Sophie Kinsella” name. Released in 2000 (under the name Confessions of a Shopaholic in the U.S.), it was an international best seller and kick-started a series that spanned ten Shopaholic books and a 2009 rom-com adaptation starring Isla Fisher as Wickham’s fictional financial-journalist avatar, Becky Bloomwood.
Wickham also published over a dozen non-Shopaholic titles under the Kinsella name, including Can You Keep a Secret?, The Undomestic Goddess, and Remember Me. Most recently, her 2024 semi-autobiographical novel, What Does It Feel Like?, followed a protagonist who, like her, had five children and had undergone brain-cancer treatment. After the book’s release, she was shortlisted for “Author of the Year” at the British Book Awards in 2025. The novel was also marked by the New York Times as a notable book of the year.
