The Undomestic Goddess.

After seeing the cover and reading the jacket of The Undomestic Goddess, by Sophie Kinsella in an airport bookstore, I was intrigued. So much so, that when I arrived in Kansas City, MO, I went out and bought it. (Three months ago.) When I finished Confessions of a Shopaholic last week, I pulled out the next Sophie Kinsella title on my list and started reading. Once I got past the first page, I couldn't put it down.

When Samantha Sweeting makes a £50 million mistake working for high-powered corporate law firm Carter Spink, she runs away from it all and finds herself in the middle of the English countryside. Dazed, tired, and hungry, Samantha finds herself on the doorstep of Trish and Eddie Geiger. When Trish mistakes Samantha for a housekeeper applying for a job and considers not hiring her, the competitor in Samantha comes out and she vies for the position, extravagantly padding her “resume” as a housekeeper. It is only when she is hired and wakes up the next morning that Samantha realizes exactly what she’s gotten herself into. Over the course of the next month with the Geigers, though, Samantha learns to cook, clean, and most importantly, to relax. She gains a new family and falls in love. But when she discovers that she has been swindled at Carter Spink, she becomes determined to clear her bad name. After uncovering a scandal that rocks the company, Samantha is offered a full partnership – the partnership she’s dreamed about since she was a child. But now she’s forced to choose: Will it be partnership in London, or the quiet life in Ebury that she has grown accustomed to?

Much more enthralling than Confessions, I found The Undomestic Goddess to be genuinely charming and funny. The story is truly heart warming and well played out with not a moment of downtime. The characters are realistic and easy to get to know. Kinsella has done it again with a protagonist that most (if not all) women can easily relate to under one pretense or another. The Undomestic Goddess provides a well-thought, well-written, touching account of what can happen when you take a chance and jump into something new.