The Secret Dreamworld of a Shopaholic
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| Author | Sophie Kinsella |
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| Country | United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
| Genre | Comedy, Chick lit |
| Followed by | Shopaholic Abroad |
The Secret Dreamworld of a Shopaholic (2000) (Confessions of a Shopaholic in the United States and India) is the first in the popular Shopaholic series. It is a chick-lit novel by Sophie Kinsella, a pen-name of Madeleine Wickham. It focuses on the main character Rebecca (Becky) Bloomwood, a financial journalist, who is in a serious amount of debt through her shopping addiction.
Rebecca Bloomwood lives in a flat in fashionable Fulham, London, that is owned by her best friend Suze's wealthy, aristocratic parents. Becky works as a financial journalist for the magazine Successful Savings, a job she dislikes. Becky admits to knowing very little about personal finance, and is thousands of pounds in debt due to her uncontrollable spending on designer homeware, clothes and beauty products. The book emphasises that her cycle of debt is not easily broken, as, even as she is thousands of pounds in debt, Becky still receives letters offering her credit and department store cards. She often rationalises her overspending, for instance by referring to items as an 'investment' or necessary. Unfortunately for Becky, she considers things such as birthday presents for her friends as necessary.
On her way to a press conference held by Brandon Communications, Becky notices a sale sign in the window of the Denny and George shop. She sees that the scarf she has long craved for is on sale at a discount of 50%. Becky sees this as a unique opportunity but realises that she has left her Visa card at the office and asks the shop assistant to reserve the scarf until she can retrieve her credit card. The assistant reluctantly agrees to hold it until the end of the day only.
Upon arriving at the press conference, she is greeted by a staff member of Brandon Communications, who mentions that there's been some surprising news in the banking field and asks Becky her opinion on the news. Becky has no idea what the woman is referring to and has to feign knowledge. After the staffer leaves, Luke Brandon, head of Brandon Communications, realising that she was feigning knowledge of what was happening, tells her that one financial group recently bought another, and it was recently rumoured that Flagstaff Life was going the same way.
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