Her lighthearted writing style won fans for its humour and relatability, giving an insight into the romances, careers and financial concerns of young women.
Kinsella preferred the terms “romantic comedy” or “wit lit” over “chick lit” to describe her work.
The first two books from her Shopaholic series were adapted for the 2009 romantic comedy film Confessions of a Shopaholic starring Isla Fisher.
They tell the stories of Becky Bloomwood, a financial journalist who is a serial shopper and hopeless when it comes to her own finances.
“I was really excited, it felt like a new voice,” Kinsella said of penning the series in 2000.
“I thought it was my side project. But having discovered comedy, it’s addictive,” she told The Times newspaper in 2024.
‘Unmatched wit’
Born on December 12, 1969 in London, Kinsella had five children with her husband, Henry Wickham, who she met as a student at the University of Oxford.
Kinsella wrote her first novel The Tennis Party aged 24 under her birth name, while working as a financial journalist.
In 2019, her novel Can You Keep a Secret was adapted into another romantic comedy starring Alexandra Daddario.
Her agents at The Soho Agency, Araminta Whitley and Marina de Pass, said, “Maddy was a once-in-a-lifetime author and friend”.
“Maddy was an intelligent, imaginative, loving and irreverent woman who valued the deeply connective power of fiction.
“She also had an unmatched wit and ability to find the funny side.”
Her latest novels were The Burnout (2023) and What Does it Feel Like? (2024).
The latter is a semi-fictional account of her cancer journey which made it on to several bestseller lists.
In an introduction to the book, Kinsella said she had “always processed my life through writing”.
“Hiding behind my fictional characters, I have always turned my own life into a narrative. It is my version of therapy, maybe.”
– Agence France-Presse
