in a post to X in 2024<\/a>. <\/p>\n\u201cTo my dear readers and followers. I\u2019ve wanted for a long time to share with you a health update and I\u2019ve been waiting for the strength to do so,\u201d she wrote.<\/p>\n
Wickham sprang to fame in the early 2000s, with the publication of \u201cThe Secret Dreamworld of A Shopaholic,\u201d which was released as \u201cConfession of a Shopaholic,\u201d in the United States.<\/p>\n
The book and subsequent series chronicled the adventures of heroine Rebecca Bloomwood, a financial journalist who has an uncontrollable and comedic urge for retail therapy, The New York Times reported.<\/p>\n
The idea for the book came in 1999 when Wickham got an eye-opening credit card bill. <\/p>\n
\u201cMy first thought was, \u2018I don\u2019t remember buying this or that, therefore I must have been defrauded,\u2019\u201d Wickham told The Times Colonist, a news outlet in British Columbia, in 2007. \u201cI suddenly saw the potential of shopping as a story to write about.\u201d<\/p>\n
She adopted the pen name Sophie Kinsella, which was a combination of her middle name and her mother\u2019s maiden name, for what she had believed would be a one-time side project, The New York Times reported.<\/p>\n
It was anything but. She wrote nine \u201cShopaholic\u201d novels, which sold millions of copies worldwide, and were translated into dozens of languages, the newspaper reported.<\/p>\n
The first two novels in the series were brought to the big screen as \u201cConfessions of a Shopaholic,\u201d a 2009 film starring Isla Fisher. A 2003 book penned under the Sophie Kinsella moniker \u2014 \u201cCan You Keep A Secret?\u201d \u2014 was turned into a 2019 feature film of the same name, starring Alexandra Daddario, according to The Times.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy first aim is to make people laugh,\u201d she told The Boston Herald in 2004. \u201cPeople always come up to me with a huge beam on their face. They feel like they know me and that they\u2019re my best friend, and I feel like I know them, too. It\u2019s like we share a common friend: my characters.\u201d<\/p>\n