Latest novel channels Lucy Ricardo
F I C T I O N The Undomestic Goddess By Sophie Kinsella Dial Press 384 pp., $23
In a break from
her successful series about an English shopaholic,
Sophie Kinsella in
her latest novel
delves into the
world of a highpowered London attorney who ends up working as a housekeeper in a countryside manor.
No matter that Samantha Sweeting doesn’t know a thing about running a home — she’s never heard of vacuum bags and doesn’t know how to turn on a washing machine. She also doesn’t know how to cook, but tells her potential employers that she has trained at the prestigious Cordon Bleu.
Samantha, who’s mistaken for a domestic applicant after winding up at the mansion, is fleeing her job as a lawyer. Just when she’s about to be made partner, she discovers she’s made a huge mistake, costing her firm £50million. Panicking, she takes refuge on a train, though she doesn’t know its destination.
When she arrives in a storybook village, Samantha finds herself at the enormous home’s front door, where she plans to ask for some water while she clears her head. But before she knows it, she’s accepted a job there, covering all the household duties.
Kinsella’s latest offering is a nice departure from the shopaholic series, which includes the best-seller
Shopaholic Takes Manhattan, even if Undomestic Goddess seems custom-written for a Hollywood movie, especially the predictable ending.
All in all, though, the book makes for a delightful read, as you wait to see what trouble Samantha will get herself into next — it’s as if Lucy Ricardo has been channelled.
This being chick lit, there is, of course, romance, in the form of the gardener-cum-pub-owner. The likable Nathaniel earns even more points when he enlists the help of his mother to teach Samantha the finer points of housekeeping and cooking.
It’s easy to root for Samantha, who never had much of a life back at the firm. And she comes from a family that’s similarly careerand whose lives seem to have the wrong priorities.
The plot is more complex than it appears when Samantha discovers the real reason that she, a perfectionist, made the mistake that catapulted her out of her life.
The book is easy to read — the movie is sure to be a hit.