Her family announced her death on social media, saying she had died that morning.
In an official statement shared by the family, they said she passed away peacefully and that her final days were filled with the things she loved most, including family, music, warmth, Christmas and joy. Kinsella, whose real name was Madeleine Sophie Wickham, had been diagnosed with an aggressive form of brain cancer in 2022.
The family said that despite her illness, which she endured with remarkable courage, she always considered herself fortunate to have a loving circle of family and friends as well as an extraordinary writing career. They added that she never took anything for granted and remained grateful for the affection she received. They said she would be dearly missed and that their hearts were breaking.
Kinsella sold more than fifty million books in over sixty countries, and her work was translated into more than forty languages. Raised in London and educated at Oxford, she began her professional life as a financial journalist. At the age of twenty four she published her debut novel, The Tennis Party, under her real name.
Before adopting the pen name Sophie Kinsella in 2000, she had published seven novels under her married name. As Sophie Kinsella she went on to publish around twenty eight books, including The Secret Dreamworld of a Shopaholic. The success of that title led to a nine book series and the 2009 film The Confessions of a Shopaholic.
Her books were sometimes labelled as chick lit, a term she regarded with mild resignation. In a 2018 interview with the Daily Mail she said that hearing the term gave her a small sense of resignation and that she wished to move beyond that label.
Her publisher said in a statement that she set a new standard for romantic comedy by weaving real life issues into stories that combined humour, emotional depth and social insight. Her final work, the 2024 novella What Does It Feel Like?, was a semi fictional portrayal of her cancer diagnosis.
Kinsella is survived by her husband, Henry, and their five children.
