When you pick up a Sophie Kinsella book, it’s almost like someone’s crunched the entire world into one street and left out all the boring bits. We enter Sophie’s world and find out more from the UK-based author herself on her latest book from her standalone series Finding Audrey.
“Finding Audrey happened in a bit of a whirlwind. I thought of the family first — Audrey, who has social anxiety, Frank and his computer games and their mother Anne who is struggling to keep everyone together. Once I had these characters in my mind, I wrote the first draft in a month! I’ve never been quite so possessed by a book!” shares Sophie on the making of the book.
Talking of the story line of her latest fiction, the author famous for her Shopaholic series, shares, “Audrey is a teenage girl suffering from social anxiety disorder. She has experienced bullying, and as a result doesn’t feel comfortable leaving the house, or taking off her dark glasses. This is the story of her journey to recovery, with the help of a boy named Linus. It’s sad in places, but funny, too, and romantic as only a teen story can be. Audrey has been through a difficult time but she never loses her wit, nor her positive spirit, and her family is with her all the way.”
Finding audrey by SOPHIE KINSELLA Rs 499, pp 288 Penguin Random House India
Known to be the queen of chick lit, the British author who now lives in London, UK, with her husband and family, shares a line that comes on the top of her mind on how she would like to describe Audrey — “If I’m the Queen of Overreaction, Mum is the Empress.”
Explaining how different her latest writing is from her previous ones, Sophie states, “It’s a different style, not necessarily because it’s a YA (young adult). There’s a scene with love notes, which is really romantic and a lovely reminder of love letters, which are sort of non-existent nowadays. Part of the book is also written in film script, and this was an exciting new twist on what I normally do; meeting my readers and connecting with them online, finishing a book and seeing a final copy.
From the moment I start thinking about the characters or write the first scene I can’t wait to see how it will turn out. There are some real highs in this book, moments with Linus and with Audrey’s family. Funny moments and sweet moments between Audrey and her brother Frank. But there are also darker moments, and that’s important too. There’s a scene where Audrey’s Doctor, Sarah, describes life as a jagged graph. Life is always full of ups and downs and I wanted that to come across to readers.”
Still reeling from the pace of her writing this book, Sophie whose Shopaholic series book’s heroine, Becky Bloomwood captured the hearts of readers worldwide recalls, “The most extraordinary part of writing Finding Audrey is that it happened so fast. I wrote the first draft in a month. My husband brought meals to me as I worked — and then we had our usual brainstorming sessions over cocktails. On recollection it was fun — and a whirlwind!”
And then we prod the author on the most suspected questions for any author — how much of Sophie do we find in her writings and she states as a matter of fact, “Each of my heroines remind me a little of myself and I consulted my children a lot for the computer games for Finding Audrey, so I think there’s a little bit more of me in this one.”
