Emma Corrigan couldn’t be more humiliated. In hopes of being promoted to marketing executive at Panther Cola, Emma completely ruins a high priced deal, and more in likely dashes her dreams of that promotion, even possibly putting her job on the line. On her way back home to London, Emma’s flight experiences dangerous turbulence, causing her to think she is living her last moments. The handsome American stranger sitting next to her gets an earful of all of Emma’s most intimate secrets, including how much she hates her job, she’s not sure she loves her boyfriend who, on paper, seems perfect, how she ruined a business deal, she hates her flatmate, the snobby Jemima, and so on and so on.
Well, the plane doesn’t crash. Everyone is alive and well, and Emma bids a shaky and somewhat awkward goodbye to the American passenger, embarrassed of her rambling tirade. She gets real embarrassed the next day when she is introduced to Jack Harper, CEO of Panther Cola- aka the American passenger from that awful flight. The head of the company knows that she hates her job, the deal she blew, how she lies about her real weight, and just about every other secret Emma had been keeping.
Can You Keep a Secret? from Sophie Kinsella, author of the Shopaholic trilogy, serves up another humorous novel that will make you laugh and want to cry all within a few pages. The stories of deceit, love, and scandal will hold your attention, rooting for the heroine who is incredibly believable and easy to sympathize with when her secrets are spilled to the public. I didn’t think the love story was quite as believable, mainly because Jack’s character was a little too in shadows. That aside, the novel was still entertaining and irresistible to put down.
Can You Keep a Secret? was the first Sophie Kinsella book I read. I received it as a gift from my sister and couldn’t put it down from the moment I picked it up. I laughed out loud through the entire book, and then I made all my girlfriends read it. I think I liked it so much because it was my first book in this now favorite genre of mine. It was funny and warm and surprising! This book turned me on to Sophie. Now that I’ve read all of her non Shopaholic books (and two Shopaholics), I’m on to Madeleine Wickham.